


Of Knights And Pawns

by BATTLEFAIRIES, SnippetsRUs



Series: The Motley Mayhem [3]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Faerûn - Fandom, Forgotten Realms
Genre: 3.5, Comedy, Convert, D&D, Drow, Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition, Enslaved, Escape, Evoker, Faerûn, Fantasy, Fighter, Friendship, Gen, High Fantasy, Humor, Imprisonment, Intrigue, Kidnapped, Kossuth, Loyalty, Mage Fight, Metamorphosis, Occasional Nudity, POV Female Character, Politics, Pre-Spellplague, Red Wizards, Selûne, Silver Marches, Silverymoon, Slavery, Swords & Sorcery, Thay, Tragedy/Comedy, Transformation, Warrior - Freeform, cleric, dnd, polymorph, shar, slave - Freeform, sorcery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 06:08:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 27,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7210997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BATTLEFAIRIES/pseuds/BATTLEFAIRIES, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnippetsRUs/pseuds/SnippetsRUs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The lovable menace Hulda and her new-found friends have saved the day, and all of the Silver Marches can sleep easy tonight. Or can they? Dark forces have plans with both Silverymoon and Hulda Swanmantle, and just like friends can be found in unlikely places, so too can loyalties be tried the hardest when no-one expects it.</p><p>Allow yourself to be engulfed by this intense adventure of drama and intrigue that will have you laugh, gasp and occasionally reach for a tissue. Fair warning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Strawberrus Interruptus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things start out small and inconspicuous, as is their wont. Just how will a hidden spellcaster disturbing everyone's beauty rest influence things to come, I wonder?

It was night and Hulda, snugly curled up in her travelling-blanket, dreamed of strawberries.  
The red fruits' fragrance was so blissful and perfect that she, even asleep, made plans to go out in the woods and gather more as soon as she was able.  
She, the quirky wizard Zan and his comrade and bodyguard Marek had found a glade in a nice, still-forested area a ways north of the scarred and scorched land the Necromancer's fiery demon horses had transformed the region in. Peaceful and calm compared to the savagely rent and barren landscape they'd travelled through, the group had picked the lush dale to settle down in for a bit to make sure everyone was patched up properly and well-rested.  
That last bit was going to be a problem, Hulda found when she accidentally bit down on her own hand, and was suddenly wide awake.  
Glancing over at Zan, who sat opposite the fire and was supposed to have last watch, she noticed the Untheri Evoker was snoring and hadn't noticed anything, comfortably reclining against the stack of firewood.

Something else dawned on her, as well: the sweet, mouth-watering smell of strawberries was still there.  
She moved over to pull a load-bearing piece of wood from under Zan's improvised bed and send the pile rolling. Losing his balance, the Southerner woke up flailing.

-”Kossuth! Hulda, it's very dangerous to wake me up like that – I summon fireballs with a mere thought, you know...!”

-”Shh,” Hulda said with a finger on her lips, eyeing Marek who still lay fast asleep. She had the finger describe circles in the air: “Do you smell that?” she asked.

The wizard's eyebrows drew together before jumping up in realisation. His hands fluttered, weaving a quick spell of Detection before he rose to his feet.

-”It's magic at work,” he concluded, and walking around the campfire and the sleeping bodyguard, gazed into the surrounding shadows. “... but I can't seem to find its origin. Weird.”

-”Maybe it's further away than your spell can reach,” Hulda suggested. “If this is a pixie pulling pranks, he might be hiding just out of range.”

Suddenly, Zan flinched. Above their heads, three feint, bluish lights were floating and growing until each had the size of an orange. They bobbed leisurely around the campsite, seemingly without purpose.

”Dancing Lights,” Hulda said, recognising the spell. It was a classic, as far as your average sprite's magical repertoire went.

-”Did you hear anyone speaking the phrases?” Zan asked, scanning the surrounding forest once more. “You can't cast that spell without saying the words.”

-” _You_ can,” Hulda reminded him.

-”I do, because I studied and trained hard on that. If this is a pixie, he's either well-educated, or not a pixie at all. Either that, or I'm a badger,” the Evoker grumbled, and seemed intent on going into the woods.

-”Marek, wake up – we need to comb the forest,” Hulda urged the sleeping swordsman, but even as she said it, the lights went out and the air smelled of fern and acorns again.

-”Is there danger?” the warrior asked as he got up and hastily girded on his sword. “What are we dealing with?”

-”Strawberries,” Hulda said. Marek stared.

In the forest, Zan called out to this bodyguard.

-”Come on Marek: we've got a spellcaster on our hands who thinks he's funny.”

-”...and it's not Zan,” Hulda added.

She felt a bit bad for the warrior, as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and, with Hulda and Zan, started half-heartedly looking behind trees and under shrubs, searching for the invisible enemy.

-”Chins up – the sooner we find out who or what is casting those spells, the sooner we can go back to bed,” their Evoker assured them.

 

* * *

 

An hour passed, dawn already a feint glow on the horizon when everyone returned to their dying fire. Hulda felt more cold than curious now, and was happy to sit down and wrap her blanket around her.

-”Best to stay put until daybreak,” Zan suggested with a long face as he put more wood on the embers, and used a wee bit of magic to reduce the smoke while the flames started licking the fresh tinder.

-”Selûne – I'm tired,” Hulda sighed.

-”I'll stand guard,” Marek offered. “You catch some rest, while the night lasts.”

-”It's going to be hard to sleep at ease now, not knowing what's out there or whether it's hostile or not,” Hulda said, trying to get comfortable. Next to her, Zan, who sat poking the fire up with a piece of wood, nodded.

-”Well, it's time we all got home and debriefed anyway.” He gave a fat branch in the fire a tap with his stick, and it broke in two, releasing a cloud of sparks that rose toward the indigo skies overhead. “We leave at first light.”


	2. Keep Your Friends Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This morning, something is off. Is Hulda right to be suspicious about the wizard's antics, or is she seeing things? The truth of the matter is, there will be but a moment to act, with no-one to tell what it is she's trying to prevent... That is, until trouble steps up its game and comes after her.

The day would be nice and sunny, Hulda guessed from the clear sky and quickly fading chill of dawn. Still sleepy-eyed but in a much better mood, she'd made a little stroll in the vicinity to see if Lathander, the Morning Sun could shed some light on last night's mystery, but there was nothing to report when she arrived back at their camping spot.  
It would have been a fine day for travelling, but she had already made Zan promise he'd teleport the three of them straight to her Temple, which he had allegedly visited once or twice to stock up on healing potions. A _Teleport_ spell would save Fundinn another day-and-a-night's flight from Silverymoon back to her, Hulda mused, and she suspected her dear familiar would appreciate – the poor thing had gone through a lot already.  
  
Zan sat leafing through his fat tome of spells in preparation, tracing the winding and looping glyphs with a finger in a practised, almost ritualistic manner while his employee stirred in the tin cups they were brewing their breakfast in – a black extract of roasted and crushed seeds or beans of some sort which Hulda knew to be smelling infinitely better than it tasted. The name ended in an ee-sound, she recalled, and even though it wasn't _ptooey_ , it should have been.  
  
She shrieked when she wanted to take a piece of wood from under a shrub to shovel dirt onto the fire before they left, but suddenly held a little, red, squirming creature by the tail.  
  
-”Pooky!” she said, “Where are your manners, lying in ambush like that?”  
  
-”Not my intention, I swear! I'm still your appointed servant and advisor, remember? I'm supposed to be at your side!”  
  
-”Don't say that is -” Zan started, picking up his staff, but Pooky waved a cautioning little finger at the man:  
  
-”Oh no you don't, wizard...!”  
  
-”Please, don't fight,” Hulda said.  
  
Zan aimed.  
  
-”Alright.” He struck the imp with the same Banishment spell he'd used in Beorunna's Well. “Done.”  
Opening his book on the right page again, he resumed preparing his spells for the day. “If I'm going to have to keep casting that spell, I ought to buy a wand or something,” he grumbled.  
  
Hulda supposed Pooky was better off back in Baator than getting into another brawl with the Evoker, at least, so she let the matter drop. She also wondered if Pooky had been lying hidden there long enough to pester them with cantrips, earlier.

 

* * *

  
  
-”Are you ready?” she asked, after the men had had their cup of bitter liquid breakfast, and were busy stamping out the fire and packing their things.  
  
-”Ready as can be,” Zan said, cracking his knuckles and making his bracelets and wristbands tinkle as he loosened his muscles. “We'll make a glorious entry, befitting heroes - through the big gate!”  
  
Hulda knew the Temple's Main Gate to be the subject of reparations, and it had been closed for some time now; inhabitants and visitors alike used the rather cramped gate on the other side of the compound.  
  
-”You mean, through the West gate,” she corrected the wizard.  
  
-”... That's what I meant,” he said with a shrug. “The big gate's the big gate, I mean, what's in a name, right?”  
  
Hulda was hesitant to explain. It seemed to her he hadn't seen the Temple for himself at all; not recently, at least. But then why tell her that he had?  
  
-”You know what, drop us off at the East gate, where the apothecary is, so I can give you two healing potions back for each one that you used up these last couple of days,” she said, inventing a gate where there were only gardens.  
  
-”Sure thing, Little Sister. Shall we do battle some more – give a man a chance to get a better deal out of it?” the wizard grinned, and gestured Marek to come over and prepare for teleportation.  
  
_He needs to know the location, or he can't teleport there at all,_ Hulda thought, and concluded that Zan, beknownst to Marek or not, wasn't planning on going to the Temple... but somewhere else.  
She also knew teleporting an unwilling subject was not possible, at least not for someone as obsessed with flamboyantly destructive spells as Zan was, rather than with the intricacies of magical travel. She regarded the dark-eyed man for a moment – something was bothering him, even though he tried his best not to show it. One would almost say there was something he wanted to get over with.  
  
-”Nah, I'm fine: I think I've seen enough battle to last me a while,” Hulda said, forcing a carefree smile before walking over to lay a hand on Zan's sleeve and give him a nod to signal that she was ready.  
  
As soon as Zan and Marek had _poofed_ out of existence, or at least to some other place – Selûne might know where that was, and suddenly Hulda wasn't sure if she wanted to find out – she started running.  
She wasn't sure what she could do to get away fast and far, but if Zan had more than one _Teleport_ spell prepared for that day, he and perhaps his bodyguard would be back in a matter of moments rather than minutes.  
She sped through the forest, hoping to find a climbable tree that could buy her some time when she heard Marek's voice suddenly starting mid-sentence, coming from the place they'd been standing shortly before.  
  
-”... she know? Maybe it's a prank,” the warrior said.  
  
-”Kossuth's burning bowels! She's not here either?”  
  
Hulda could not hear Zan's annoyed sigh, but she guessed it had to be there. She found a shrub with overhanging, thickly leafed bows and slid under it. She deplored her garments not being made in more camouflaging colours, and attempted to stay as still as possible and not think of the ants and earwigs that were without a doubt crawling under the dry leaves underneath her.  
  
-”She can't be far,” Marek's voice came, sounding already closer-by. “I could use the amulet again. It should still be calibrated to locate her.”  
  
Now that was bad news. Hulda started sweating.  
  
-”You mean you still have that piece of junk? On with it then; I don't want this to take any longer than it should.”  
Zan sounded aggravated – the gods only knew what game these Untheri were playing, or why.  
  
Hulda couldn't quite see anybody from underneath her shrub, but she heard a single pair of sandalled feet approaching on the forest floor clear enough.  
Suddenly, Zan's voice rang through the wood:  
  
-”That bush! Over there!”  
  
Not a heartbeat later, Hulda got dragged through the earwig-infested leaves and out from under her cover.  
She hurriedly cast a spell, and sent a staggering jolt of electricity through Marek's bronze breastplate. The warrior fell flat on his back, fingers and toes twitching. Hulda, undecided how far to take this battle against her – supposed – friends, ran off as fast as her legs could carry her. Something kept up with her, though, going by the rustling of leaves and twigs in her wake – but when Hulda turned to see, she noticed it was a spell of Zan's: black tendrils reached for her, and nearly made her trip. She jumped over a groping black limb, watching it grab a tree-root instead, only to run into a chestnut tree herself. A second crawling cluster of tendrils sprouted from the earth beside her, and wrapped around her legs.  
Calling on her goddess, Hulda crossed her arms, rousing the translocating magic that her bracers were bestowed with. An instant later, she was free and out of the two Southerner's sight.  
Off to her left, she heard Zan's amused laugh.  
  
-”Try all you want, Little Sister! We _will_ find you – to a wizard, your magical gear stands out like a big, bright lantern in this forest!”  
  
Hulda knew he was right, and even considered leaving her cloak and bracers behind – but there wasn't a chance she could hide from whatever magic tied her to that golden medallion.  
She had to try and steal it.  
  
Marek came jogging from behind a stretch of fern, looking for her. Hulda, slipping behind a tree, rose up as quietly as a ghost with the magic of her cloak, and settled on a sturdy branch. An acorn dropped at the tree's foot had the warrior approach to investigate; Hulda saw him hold up the medallion again, and she waited until he stood nearly directly below her.  
She hurt her feet when she jumped him – no way was she going to jump rear end first ever again – but going by the groan that was muffled by four inches of leaf-littered forest floor, the warrior was hurting more. Hulda snatched the golden trinket, and ran off once more.  
  
She had trouble getting her boots off while on the run, however, and found a fat oak to lean to as she undid them.  
  
-”Confound it – I should have picked a lower pair to have enchanted, with less straps,” she muttered to herself. As in answer, Zan's voice sounded from directly beside her.  
  
-”Ah, a woman's vanity,” he chided her as he became visible again. He had his staff aimed at her. “Surrender, Little Sister, and you can keep your beloved boots.”


	3. New Dress Code Applies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sensitive souls need not look, because there will be sudden exhibitionism in this chapter.

Marek joined them, rubbing his neck and still not completely able to keep his eyes focused. His employer nudged Hulda towards him with his staff.  
  
-”How in the world is it even possible that someone with your training can end up losing from a notoriously clumsy girl like this at every turn? If you're done letting yourself get beaten up by Hulda, why don't you tie her hands so we can be on our way.”  
  
The warrior complied, tying Hulda's hands in front of her, with rope looped between three fingers of each hand to prevent her from casting spells with them. She found it peculiar he'd thought of that without the wizard telling him.  
When he was done, the warrior picked up the remaining slack of rope.  
  
-”And now?” he asked.  
  
-”Walkies,” Zan said. “We make a stop by the lake; we have no use for pretence anymore.”

 

* * *

  
After an hour's march during which Hulda got no answers whatsoever out of either of the boys, the three of them arrived at a small, reclusive lake. There was a sandy bank where Zan and Marek put Hulda under a tree, and she took stock of her surroundings: the little path they'd been following was hardly more than a drinking trail for the local wildlife, and other than to the lakeside it went nowhere. She also noticed a recent grave under the next tree over. It bore no identification and no stone was raised over it, and to Hulda's consternation, Zan ordered Marek to start digging.  
Only when the warrior pulled three leather sacks out of the open grave, two of which clanked noisily as he dropped them onto the forest floor, Hulda realised no-one was actually buried there.  
  
-”Excellent, nothing's missing,” Zan observed while examining the contents of the smallest of the sacks, which seemed to belong to him. “Time for some washing-up is in order, I'd say – _finally_ I can get rid of these smelly rags,” he said, and before Hulda could comment, he started stripping.  
  
As the Evoker gathered his clothes in a ball and flung them far into the wood with a heart-felt 'good riddance' from his part, Marek had finished checking each bit of armour he'd fished out of his share of the bags. As hard as he'd neglected to grease or polish his bronze armour, so much care did he put in ascertaining the one that seemed made of mage-wrought black steel still hinged and shone properly. He, too, took off his clothes before joining Zan, who had taken to skinny-dipping in the lake. The two men shared a round of jesting and joking, before getting to business and washing up. Hulda, meanwhile, was acutely aware of how bad she smelled and of the dry leaves and maybe bugs in her hair, but she continued to be firmly ignored by the two. Marek had dug up soap and a razor from a satchel, and started shaving – first his meagre stubble, then his head.  
Trickling foreboding reached Hulda's mind, and by the time Marek and Zan were good and clean, shaven and dressed up in the outfits that had been buried, her worries had turned into full-fledged fear.  
  
Marek's transformation was the most complete – to Hulda, the only familiar thing about the warrior was his face. She had known a thing or two about Thay and its tattooed Knights before that day, but seeing the cranial glyphs and feeling the effects of their intimidating magic for herself was downright ghastly. On top of that, he was wearing his full Thayan armour, too. The suit of black plate covered him from his chin all the way down to his toes, the sharply curved and pointed segments snugly interlocking and wrapping around each of the man's limbs as if it were a monstrous carapace. A pair of ornamental, horn-like protrusions affixed to the back jutted out above Marek's head, and turned his silhouette into a demonic one.  
  
-”Hey Marek, do the thing,” Hulda heard Zan say.  
  
Marek headed straight for her.  
  
-”On your feet, and bow your head before Zan Kuras, Red Wizard, Circle Leader and Circle Participant to Aznar Thrul, Zulkir of Evocation of Thay,” Marek droned, and lifted Hulda up like a little girl before planting her right in front of his master.  
  
-”Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Zan said, his shaven head as elaborately tattooed as his Knight's. He was dressed in the vermilion robes of his order and grinning from ear to ear. “Though I believe we've met before?”  
  
-”You've made a fine monkey out of me,” Hulda grumbled, “but if I know you one bit after all we've been through, you're still the same, smug, self-satisfied hot-shot and you'll no doubt tell me in a moment the reason of this outrageous charade...!”  
  
-”Told you she thinks me the hot one,” Zan winked at Marek before obliging Hulda. “It's nothing personal. You just happened to cross our path while we were travelling undercover – and the idea of friendly cooperation came from you, I seem to recall.” He twiddled his fingers, looking at the extra golden rings that shone there. No doubt he'd only worn the magical ones before now. “I'm afraid this is where it all ends now. It's a bloody shame, as I've come to grow rather fond of you, the disagreeable nature of your sorceric magic notwithstanding,” he said.  
  
Hulda tensed. Something had changed in the wizard's voice, and he sounded... angry with her, she guessed, as he continued: “Something's been made very clear to me, when we faced that Necromancer: if it weren't for you, the mission would've failed and we'd all be done for.”  
  
-”Er... you're welcome?” Hulda said, not sure where this was going.  
  
Zan's shoulders slumped, and he looked at her with tired eyes.  
Hulda picked right up on that obvious signal of distress:  
  
-”And I've grown fond of you guys, too, really! Obvious things notwithstanding... But I still don't get why you had to take me captive – is it the Little Sister thing? Because when I was six, Jonas and Harald, they would chase me for-”  
  
The Evoker's right hand flicking up in a gesture for silence nipped Hulda's babbling in the bud. He took to a frantic pacing to and fro; if inner turmoil was a fuel, he could probably keep doing that until sundown, Hulda estimated.  
  
-”Here's the plan,” he began, right when Hulda wanted to comment. “Since someone, or several someones in Thay want me dead, and seeing as how this mission was supposed to do the trick, I'm going to lie low for a while and pretend somewhere around that Ancestral Mound is a small pile of ash with my name on it. Zan Kuras died for his country - and I can't suffer anyone telling otherwise, ever.”  
  
-”Well, that's settled then!” Hulda said. “My lips are sealed – your secret is safe with me.”  
  
-”Oh, and I suppose that giant Pit Fiend you summoned back there was supposed to remain a secret, as well? Can't say I'm convinced,” Zan retaliated. “Believe me, I tried. I know your bird still thinks we were already good and done for, so there's that, but... I don't know any mind-affecting spells, or anything that could alter or erase _your_ memory, _and_ you just blew your chance at imprisonment over at my family's estate in Thay when you saw through my Teleporting ruse. It was all the risk I was prepared to take, now that it's clear someone is out to destroy me.”  
  
-”Yes, about that,” Hulda said, “What could possibly make you think -”  
  
-”The horrible lack of adequate information about my target, that's what! The intel _I_ received had me think Mortimere could be dealt with one-handed!” Zan raged, but then he sighed and seemed to calm down a bit. “Forgive me, Hulda, but what comes next is preferable over anything my enemies would think up in the way of interrogation methods if they get their hands on you, I guarantee. Now then, if you'd kindly move over there and lay down in that hole in the ground Marek has been so kind to provide...”  
  
-”Wait,” the bodyguard – Thayan Knight – said.  
  
The Evoker raised an eyebrow.  
  
-”It's been fun while it lasted, Marek, but we're Thayans again and we must act the part. You'll speak when spoken to, or address me in a proper fashion if you want to make conversation.”  
  
Marek momentarily hesitated, but then lowered his head and bent the knee.  
  
-”Master - she can still be of use, and live without telling any tales. My esteemed father has means to ensure her silence _and_ anonymity, and would pay a fair price for her.”  
  
-”She's a headstrong, clumsy nun and worse: impure with sorcery. No-one would want that for a slave,” Zan said.  
  
Hulda felt her toes curl. Marek, still kneeling, swallowed and continued:  
  
-”My father has been experimenting with sorceric blood in slaves for three decades. He is always looking for subjects for his research.”  
  
Hulda was sweating, feeling more smelly than ever, but to her good fortune – she hoped it was good fortune – Zan seemed to consider. A moment passed, and then he gestured for his servant to rise.  
  
-”You do know this means we have to keep on walking, do you?” he said, though going by his expression, Hulda thought he did not seem opposed to the idea. “At least until we find horses we can confiscate. I can't teleport an unwilling person even if you hit her on the head,” he said sternly.  
  
-”I... I didn't realise, Master,” the Knight apologised. “I heard that some wizards have found ways to circumvent...”  
  
-”Pah, you're thinking of _Nybor's Joyful Voyage_? That's a great spell if you like to end up a hundred leagues into the Sea of Fallen Stars, or worse – embedded in the earth like a truffle.”  
  
Motioning for Hulda and Marek to start walking, Zan looked at the Knight, who – curiously – had the slightest of smiles forming on his lips. “... You're thinking about that one Nybor-joke, aren't you?” the wizard inquired.  
  
Marek, leading Hulda by her rope, grinned.  
  
-”When does a Thayan Knight shave?” he asked, and immediately answered his own question: “... When Nybor has left the enclave!”  
  
Both men laughed out loud. Hulda didn't get it. Zan came up with another:  
  
-”What's a good way to make the enemy troops hit harder? Casting _Nybor's Wrathful Castigation_!”  
  
Again, both nearly burst their sides.  
  
-”What have I gotten into this time,” Hulda wondered as they made their way into the forest again.


	4. Hello, Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that the Red Wizard is feeling good and smug about himself, cosmic karma has an open position for someone to come and rain on that parade. Whether that is good news or bad for our dear Hulda remains to be seen...

Their journey brought them through a swath of blighted land – the demonic wildfire caused by the Necromancer reached far. Charred stumps of once-mighty oaks were the only thing still standing. The group didn't tread earth here, but ash. Hulda hoped they wouldn't have to make camp in this desolation, but the lengthening shadows didn't look reassuring.  
The going was steady until they arrived to the place where the terrain was more rocky, demanding that the three of them pick their way over boulders and across trench-like riverbeds.  
Marek had just lowered Hulda, who was still tied up, into one such ditch and let Zan who pretended to find it a near-impossible chore, haul her onto the other side. Hulda elbowed him – the best she could do with her hands bound.  
  
-”I hope the terrain improves quickly enough – we need to get to the other side of this damn scorched earth before nightfall,” the Evoker shouted over his shoulder at Marek. The Knight didn't answer.  
Neither did he show himself – he was still in the riverbed somewhere. ”Marek,” Zan said, and glanced over the edge.  
Hulda heard him cuss _during_ the casting of a spell – a fireball bloomed inside the trench, and the wizard cursed again. “Kossuth! The devil's quicker than water! Hold on, I'll get him yet...!”   
  
He sped alongside the riverbed, firing one spell after another. Hulda didn't know what to make of it, until she glanced over the edge herself and saw Marek lying prone, pulling a thin dagger out from under the plating that covered his ribs. Blood flowed red, and Hulda wanted to jump in and try to help, when she heard a voice whisper her name – a voice she recognised.  
  
-”Rhyl'lyn!” she hissed at the drow crouching behind the stump of a tree. “What are you doing?”  
  
-”What does it look like?” he gruffly said. He had Pinky strapped to his back, Hulda saw.   
He was also short one dagger.  
  
-”Damn it, you're not supposed to kill 'm! Here, cut me loose,” she said, and held up her bound hands. She needed to stop Marek's bleeding.  
  
Rhyl'lyn peeked left and right to see if Zan was near – the wizard was probably looking for him in the riverbed, as he was nowhere in sight. Drawing another dagger, Rhyl'lyn approached Hulda.  
After two quick paces, he got blasted off his feet by an exceptionally hot fireball.  
  
-”Got you, you upstart mole-rat,” Zan grumbled, his invisibility-spell compromised by the destructive magic.  
  
Rhyl'lyn was back upright in an instant, chucking the dagger meant to free Hulda at the Red Wizard in one fluid motion. Zan recoiled as the weapon struck him in the side, but he pulled it out and advanced. “Those pointy ears – is that where the clamps go when you're hung out to dry?” he taunted, dropping the bloody shank and flexing his fingers.  
  
Hulda forgot to breathe when the Evoker brought the full extent of his knowledge of the Art to bear, turning the air itself into roaring flame. He rained fire and magma from the sky; temperatures rose so steeply they had Hulda think that in a moment, even the ash under their feet would catch fire. She fell flat on her face, covering her head with her hands.  
  
When the heat was gone and the flames had disappeared, Hulda dared to look up. Zan was panting, his left hand pressed tightly against his wound while he looked about himself. The ground around his feet was swept bare; boulders had cracked from the heat and the large tree-stump was gone.  
  
-”More mushroom than man,” he chuckled, grinning.”Did you hear that? Or did Lolth lay eggs in your ears, perhaps?” He laughed maniacally as he kicked at a clump of ash, even though he was still bleeding profusely.  
  
-”You bestial man!” Hulda cried, and was in front of him in an instant. “It's me Rhyl'lyn was after! Quit your oafish jokes and look after your damn bodyguard!”  
  
Zan pushed her away with a snarl – she tripped and fell painfully on her side, unable to catch herself with her bound hands.  
  
-”You're saying this was that subterranean runt from Beorunna's Well?” Zan bellowed, but then a jolt went through him and he fell right next to her. With one leg still swung over the edge of the next trench over, Rhyl'lyn reloaded his crossbow.  
  
-”Present time, wizard – this runt is still among the living,” the drow corrected. “Hulda – get over here...!”  
  
-”Stop,” Marek's voice came from behind them. With his shield and sword left behind in the riverbed, the Knight still struck an imposing figure as he rose and stood tall. He clenched his side with his left hand when he approached Hulda and Zan – in the other, there was the glimmer of something golden.  
  
-”Stand back,” Rhyl'lyn warned him. “It is impossible for me to miss at this distance.”  
  
-”I can take a quarrel of that thing, and still do what I need to do,” Marek grated, his voice thick with pain... and something else.  
  
-”Ah, the famous self-sacrificing dedication of the Thayan Knights,” Rhyl'lyn sneered. “I suppose your wizard isn't blessed with anything like it?” He lowered the crossbow ever so slightly, keeping it trained on Zan instead.   
  
With some effort, the wizard pushed himself upright and got to his feet.  
  
-”Marek,” he said, and Hulda saw his boyish grin appear as he looked over his shoulder at his bodyguard, “... let's try a Quick Skitter starting right foot on three-count...!”  
  
Hulda's eyes darted from Marek, who kept walking toward her and Zan, to Rhyl'lyn still sitting there with his crossbow shouldered and ready – the Vhaeraunite didn't trust it, and nervously shouted back:  
  
-”Don't so much as try anything, or Thay will be short two of his best idiots!”  
  
-”Rhyl'lyn, stop!” Hulda begged, and turned toward the two Thayans pleadingly.  
  
-”Marek, on three-count,” Zan hissed, sounding anxious. The Knight avoided his master's eyes.  
  
-”I'm sorry,” he said, and lifted his hand – Hulda recognised the golden medallion as it glimmered in the light of the afternoon sun. “ _Ata_ , are you watching?” the Knight suddenly whispered, to no-one in particular it seemed, but Hulda thought she could hear a faint reply:  
  
-” _Yes – all is ready._ ”  
  
-”Final warning!” Rhyl'lyn yelled, tensing up, and Zan shouted his servant's name in fear and anger:  
  
-”Marek! You're _forsworn_ to obey!”  
  
-”I'm sorry,” came the pained reply, and then the inevitable happened.  
  
Hulda heard the twang of the crossbow's string first, and registered how Zan took the quarrel in the chest with an audible twack, just beside the sternum, right before she felt Marek loop the medallion's thin chain over her head, and pull its adjuster all the way up to the nape of her neck.   
  
“Now _Ata_ , now!”  
  
Hulda was unsoftly pushed aside by the Knight, catching a glimpse of Rhyl'lyn getting to his feet and on his way toward them while Marek sank to a knee, and Zan collapsed.  
For a sliver of time, there was something – a flood of magic, rushing in from all sides and centring on the dying wizard; Hulda felt it raise the hair on her arms and neck, and steal her breath. An orange glow emanated from somewhere within the Evoker...


	5. To Make Matters Even More Interesting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter the one person who comes well-prepared to handle the likes of Hulda Swanmantle - or does he? Sounds like a challenge...

A swirling sensation in her stomach, a brief feeling of weightlessness and then a sudden change in light, smell and sound indicated Hulda had been subjected to a _Teleportation_ spell, and involuntarily at that. Her new surroundings were dim, hot and bearing a heavy smell of old parchment and leather. Underfoot, the ground was uneven, and while Hulda's eyes adapted she learned that she stood on the inside of a cubicle cage of iron, pushed against a brick wall in the back of an alchemist's or wizard's workshop. The latter, apparently, going by the tattooed head that she could make out behind the angled top of a writing desk near a blazing hearth. The Red Wizard returned his quill to the inkwell as he rose from his seat, blowing on the writing he held in his hands. He had a greying goatee and a bunch of long, silver hairs sticking out of his bushy eyebrows. Hulda noticed he was trying to hide a little paunch.  
  
-”Miss Hulda Swanmantle,” he addressed her by her full name. “So glad you could make it – I have prepared a questionnaire for you,” he said, and started pacing in front of her prison as he read out loud: “Would you rather describe _'Assur's Willy-Nilly Teleportation'_ – placeholder name – as pleasant or unpleasant? Please state your answer by picking a number from one to five, with 'one' being very pleasant indeed, and 'five' being absolutely nightmarish.”  
  
-”You're mad!” Hulda shrieked. “People are dying over there! Send me back this instant!”  
  
The wizard removed a pair of horn-mounted crystal spectacles, and gravely put them through a small golden hoop he carried on his belt, where they disappeared. Hulda thought something about him looked familiar.  
  
-”Tell me,” he said, “Has that Kuras boy burst into flame yet?”  
  
Hulda blinked.  
  
-”W-what? Who – Zan? He -” Her eyes had narrowly registered the Evoker becoming translucent of sorts, like a lampshade, or a screen of waxed vellum before a hearth-fire...   
  
-” _Incendiary Reckoning_ , meant to kill any attackers standing within twenty paces,” the wizard said. Hulda's blood froze. The man continued: “... It's a spell of his own design; he carries an enchanted ring that explosively ignites his blood in the event of his death. I know the details, because I helped him make it before he left for Beorunna's Well. So has he, or has he not, gone up in flame?”  
  
Hulda swallowed.  
  
-”But then...”  
  
Marek had been right at Zan's side. Rhyl'lyn had been running towards them the moment Hulda had been whisked away from the scene. Twenty paces...    
  
-” _Has he_?” The wizard repeated, sounding so fierce that Hulda flinched, and hastily nodded her confirmation. She was answered with a sigh.  
  
-”To secure your safety, Marek was tasked to lay down his life and slay the Evoker if he would prove harmful to our own mission, and if the Necromancer Mortimere from the Arcane Brotherhood wasn't up to the task of laying him low – and frankly, he ought have been. Zan Kuras was way out of his league against such a formidable foe. Or horribly mal-informed. Courtesy of a rival in his circle, perhaps. It seems Marek out-did himself by seeing both missions through instead of securing you and leaving the Kuras kid to his own devices. Just as well – the Zulkirs will be pleased, though I'd have preferred it if he hadn't put the more important objective of the two at risk.”  
  
Hulda's head spun. She didn't know what to make of this... First, she' been fooled by Zan, who now turned out to be fooled by someone else: apparently, Marek was obeying this man, who seemed to be carrying out orders from yet other higher-ups.  
  
-”Why me? What do you want from me?” she desperately asked. The wizard checked the piece of parchment in his hands.  
  
-”You _are_ the one named Hulda Swanmantle, of Selûne's temple in Silverymoon, are you not? Then I am pleased to announce that you have been chosen to be part of a Trade Agreement Leverage Program. Silverymoon is a tough nut to crack for Samas Kul's Guild of Foreign Trade, but once a Thayan enclave can be established in the Gem of the North, the ill repute our enclaves have will be greatly lessened and other cities will follow soon. It is up to your siblings, who I understand hold positions of some power, to gently urge their superiors into looking favourably towards a possible mercantile arrangement. By all means necessary... for your safe return.”   
  
Hulda's hands clenched the iron bars of her cage so hard her knuckles turned white.  
  
-”Outrageous! No-one will believe a Red Wizard won't kill off any hostage if it suited him! They'd rather storm this place, and tell on you and your Samas Kul!”  
  
-”In your best interest, let us hope they think otherwise. And they will have to locate you, first – not an easy feat, I assure you, with me as your chaperon. If you'd be so kind – could you read this small lettering, please?”  
  
Hulda studied the word on the scrap of parchment he held up to her. She'd never heard of it.  
  
-”... _Ananizapta_ ,” she read out loud, wondering what to make of it. She saw her question answered as she involuntarily hit the cage with her forehead: Marek's medallion had suddenly increased in weight, or rather, it had transformed into something else altogether: fingering the fat metal ring dangling on the front and the clasp with the lock at the back, Hulda could only conclude that this was a slave-collar of sorts.  
  
-”Worked like a charm,” the old wizard muttered to himself and ticked off a line somewhere in his notes. “Please do take care, I've stacked a mountain of gold's worth of enchantments on that trinket. Other than my teleportation spell, and the transformation, communication, observation and counter-observation magic, I've included a hex that'll prevent you, within a predetermined perimeter, to -” he conjured his spectacles from the golden hoop again to read from his list, “... scale the outer walls, exit the great gate up front, or enter the sewers... pick up or wield any weapon, including magical or non-magical wands, sticks, pokers, stones – whether natural or of a manufactured nature – as well as sharp kitchen utensils, plus rope and string. Neither will you be able to cast any spells that are not healing or restoring in nature – because, I am glad to inform you, you'll be helping me with brewing potions this afternoon. For customers. We might as well make you useful while you're under my roof.”  
  
-”Selûne wouldn't want me to fill the coffers of a Thayan wizard,” Hulda huffed.  
  
-”Neither will she want Tom, Dick or Clancy to bleed to death hunting trolls; this is an enclave, and we'll be selling to non-Thayans, mostly. If it's all the same to you – I can think up other chores, if you want,” the wizard said. “One last thing though. The collar allows for a disguise, which I failed to determine at the time. So by all means, think up a pleasing form not too different from your own, but be warned that it will be the only guise you'll be wearing as long as you're here. Something exotic perhaps – dark-skinned slaves are known to be expensive and -”  
  
He shouldn't have said 'dark-skinned'. Hulda inspected her slender, jet-black hands and snow-white locks, and noted she didn't seem to have shrunk a bit during her metamorphosis.   
The wizard regarded her sternly with clear and present disapproval.  
  
-”Wonderful,” he congratulated her, most annoyed. “Now how am I ever going to explain _that_ to anyone?”


	6. Master Thrym's Way of Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things aren't always as they seem and this wizard is not like any other, especially when compared to certain other residents of the enclave. Could it be that this man might actually end up earning Hulda's appreciation?

The next day – Hulda had been provided a hammock for her cage, which she found _way_ too comfortable and fun for her predicament – she was let out, and shown around the premises. She was made to put on some more inconspicuous clothes in a teeny-tiny room – a closet, really, in a corner of what the old wizard called his 'emporium'. Apparently, the ageing wizard was also a shopkeeper. Going by the wares displayed in the store, the little room had to be where customers could try on their new magical garments, and discretely check in the provided mirror if their buns weren't overly outlined.  
Hulda's were. None of the clothes given to her fitted. After bursting a seam while she tried to stuff her foot in a undersized slipper, she hobbled outside on one shoe and gave the wizard an earful. To his credit, he apologised a billion times, admitting it was a bit difficult to correctly guess one's sizes through a crystal ball.  
Embarrassed, the old wizard at length offered her a modest-looking, worn but doubtlessly expensive tunic he pulled from a mannequin in the shop.  
  
-”It makes undead creatures see you as their own. I don't think it'll raise much suspicion in here,” he said, as he handed her the off-white garment through the dressing room's curtains.  
As was to be expected from a magical outfit, this one fit Hulda snugly. She was promised shoes if she could wait until dinnertime, and would have played the part of well-behaved slave to satisfaction before that time.  
”You'll address me as Master Thrym, or Master, and when fetching components for me or delivering messages, you'll refer to me as 'your master Assur Thrym', since there are more than one, the other being 'Master Marek Thrym of the Guard'."  
  
-”Marek is a relative of you?! - I'm sorry, I mean, he... he was?” Hulda bumbled helplessly.  
  
-”Was, and will be,” Assur Thrym said. “Foster child, to be exact – and I will be out the door to retrieve his remains in a moment. A very capable priest of Kossuth keeps residence nearby, and I'll make sure to pull his sleeve about the matter.” He clapped Hulda on the back. “At ease, girl. He'll be among the living again soon enough.”  
  
They went out into the street after that, and Hulda was shown where to draw water, where to find the Enclave's bath-house, and where she wasn't allowed to go – inside the inn being one of those places. The magic of the collar let her go as far as the nearest side of the roofed well, but not its far side, and all the way up into the porch-house and under the Main Gate's arch, but not beyond the last flagstone, where a drawbridge gave onto a road that disappeared between forested, rolling hills. She'd wondered where in Faerûn she could possibly be – the Red Wizard had mentioned trolls, but those were a constant in nearly every forest she knew of. The landscape didn't strike her as the Frozenfar or the scorching South, at least.  
Assur Thrym's voice took her out of her reverie.  
When Hulda turned, she saw the old man making conversation with a bald woman in red robes. Another wizard.  
  
-”I must say I'm awed. You've always had a peculiar taste, Assur Thrym, but where does one even get a drow slave, and sunlight-adapted at that?” the woman asked, and if Hulda read Thrym's face right, he wasn't sure what to answer.  
  
-”I fell off the back of a lorry,” she sprang to the man's aid.  
  
Her chaperon didn't look grateful for the effort, but the other wizard amusedly tittered:  
  
-”A simpleton! That's absolutely adorable of you, Thrym. Get her to not talk out of turn like that, and I'll buy her for a good price – whenever you tire of her.” She conjured a rooster-feather fan from her sleeve and looked at her colleague with a pouting smile.  
  
-”Why, Naheeta - you've got an insatiable appetite for slaves! Your house must be bursting at the seems of 'm by now. Or do you eat one, every once in a while?”  
  
This earned Thrym a smack with the feather fan.  
  
-”You weird old man, you. Sure, I... misplace some of the bothersome ones every now and then, but an Enchantress has to experiment, does she not?”  
  
-”If by misplace, you mean intoxicate with your love-potions and sell on with a steep profit, and by 'has to' you mean, 'needs to in order to fund her wardrobe', then yes, I agree,” Thrym said, stepping out of the woman's reach just in time. Hulda got swatted on the nose with the closed fan.  
  
She bit back an insult, and while Thrym turned pale, the other wizard apologised in a most horrible way:  
  
-”There there,” she cooed, “Did that hurt? Aw, but I'm sure it's feeling better again already my dear, is it not?”  
  
-”Yes ma'am,” Hulda quacked awkwardly, both hands still on her nose and not quite trusting if it would stay on if she'd let go, “Thank you ma'am.” She wondered if the fan had weaponising magic put on it.  
  
-”Some potential,” the woman told Thrym in conclusion. “Congratulations with your new acquisition, Assur Thrym,” and with those words, she left.  
  


* * *

  
  
-”That was a close call,” Assur Thrym said as he closed the shop's door behind them, a few moments later. “Too close. It's going to take a lot of watering the gossip posies at the inn and making a few suggestions of my own to drown out any unfavourable theories that might arise. Come with me – I need to place another spell on that collar.”  
  
-”Yet another spell?” Hulda's eyes went big. “You can't keep stacking enchantments on anything as if they're... pancakes,” she blurted.  
  
Assur Thrym momentarily paused his rummaging in one of his counter's drawers to reward Hulda's comparison with a raised eyebrow.  
  
-”I can't 'just' stack 'm like _pancakes_ ,” he said, placing sealed jars of different sizes on the desktop. “It requires thirty years of honest-to-Kossuth study and research, craftsmanship, and a fairly good helping of excellence. It is only fortunate that you find yourself in the company of a man who takes pride in his work.” He held a vial with a pickled bug in it up against the light before placing it aside.  
  
A roll of parchment tucked under one arm, and the hand of the other dipping in a small velvet purse, Assur Thrym set to work, and started throwing fine sand around – haphazardly at first glance, until Hulda looked down and saw he'd made a nice circle of interlocking glyphs on the shop floor around her feet. The old wizard droned incantations as he sprinkled Hulda's collar with more of the stuff.  
  
“Put this in your mouth,” he ordered, pushing something in her hand. Hulda hoped it wasn't the pickled bug. “Don't swallow – it's my last one,” the wizard urged.  
  
The thing looked the most like a dried slug, and tasted only marginally better.  
  
-”Oops,” Hulda said, and grinned. The wizard took a pen, and unfurled his parchment.  
  
-”... Got you again...!” he said, and ticked off another entry on his list.  
  


* * *

  
  
After having finished the ritual with gestures and more sand, Assur Thrym took a step back and looked at Hulda as if admiring her.  
Hulda wanted to make a snide remark, but found she could not speak.  
  
-”You'll find that you cannot speak,” the mad wizard said, as he started pacing around her, picking up a short, rune-riddled broom from a stand and sweeping the sand from the glyphs under a cabinet; “I have made it so that you cannot make conversation with anyone who does not introduce himself to you. ... Hello, my name is Assur Thrym.”  
  
-”Good grief!” Hulda immediately responded. “All that effort to make sure I won't make a fool out of you in public?”  
  
-”Or ask any of my customers, or visitors of the bath-house or the enclave inn to send word to your family or temple order in Silverymoon,” Assur Thrym said sternly. Hulda's spirit sank.  
  
-”Why,” she asked at length, after she'd found a trunk to flop down on, “Why not simply cut out my tongue? Why not keep me in that cage in the back room, and feed me water and grubs until Silverymoon either accepts or declines Samas Kul's proposition?”  
  
-”Because,” Assur Thrym said, and he sounded somewhat insulted, “I wouldn't take pleasure in it. Casting spells and making magic items gives me pleasure. A good conversation gives me pleasure. Seeing young people in good health makes me, genuinely, a happy person. I may be a Red Wizard, but does that exclude me from being humane? Must I use my dotation and my personal wealth to strike fear and despair in the hearts of others, instead of creating new and wondrous things for the sake of enjoying the Art? Tell me, young woman, where you hail from that you come up with such one-sided notions?”  
  
Hulda felt like she could burn a hole in the floor and disappear through it.  
  
-”Far away, I guess,” she stammered, ashamed.  
  
-”Far away, indeed,” the wizard nodded, and set to placing his jars back in the drawers of his desk.


	7. Marek, son of Assur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hulda gets a measure of what it entails to be father and son in Thayan society, when that son is a deviant in a most unexpected way...

The old Thrym left via Teleportation spell shortly after, having tasked Hulda with drawing a bucket of water for tea, as “Shou tea is the best raw material to start brewing potions with,” the man had said.  
After Hulda had located Thrym's kitchen, firewood, a kettle and tea leaves, and spilled half of them, and again half when she hit the bin with the handle of the broom, and had finally swept three-quarters of the fine tea out the door and poured herself a cup to drink to its very good health, Assur Thrym came in carrying a bundle of sticks. Only when Hulda saw him gravely positioning them onto a polished wooden workbench in the back where her cage was did she realise they were the charred remains of his foster son. The smell of incense came out of the room with him as he joined Hulda for tea, a few moments later.  
  
-”The priest will be here within a couple of days. Let us get our minds off this matter, and talk about magic while we prepare ourselves for an afternoon of potion-making. I have it on good authority – my own, to be exact – that you combine your religious calling with magic of a sorceric nature...”  
  
Even with the old wizard fishing for details about Hulda's affinity with sorcery in a manner that, for all the polite man's tact, skirted contempt more than once, Hulda found him an interesting and highly intelligent conversationalist. In turn, the old Thrym seemed to appreciate Hulda not trying to destroy him at every turn, but being genuinely interested in his insights and opinion. She guessed this wasn't so with the other Red Wizards.  
Dinner-time came sooner than expected, and Hulda received a pair of darling boots from her captor. She really wished her collar would have let her test them for magical properties then, because she was sure the wizard had just pulled them from a cabinet in the store somewhere rather than gone shopping.  
  


* * *

  
  
Soon it was established in the enclave that Assur Thrym had landed a real bargain by purchasing a drow slave who'd fallen on her head in a transportation-related accident, and the staring and gossip in the street diminished somewhat... excluding a notable relapse when the agitated wizard had to pull his house-maid from the mess she'd made when her suddenly immovable collar had dislodged the basket of dyed wool she'd hidden herself in, together with all the cargo of the wool-merchant's wagon as it passed under the Main Gate. So much for trying to thwart the slave-collar, Hulda had concluded.  
Finding better ideas for an escape, or even just a way to circumvent the restrictions her collar placed on her freedom proved futile and Hulda, out of necessity, settled into a routine of fetching water and doing small chores in and around the shop each morning, and helping with potions in the afternoons. She and her chaperon talked endlessly during these sessions, as well as after dinner when the shutters were closed and customers returned home.  
This way, Assur Thrym learned more than a bit about witchcraft and sorcery, with its spontaneous nature, and Hulda in turn gleaned a thing or two about her captor that she suspected not even Marek knew.  
  
-”She was called A'hara, meaning 'something rare'... as in 'precious', of course, instead of 'badly cooked',” the Old Thrym mused, talking about his foster son's mother over a pot of mint-flavoured tea and a score of vials ready to be infused with magic. “A beautiful but frail little thing, delicate and thin like a reed – I could lift her up with just one hand! It goes without saying that I was more fit back then,” the old wizard chuckled. “But what her body lacked, she made up in spirit: independent, resourceful, charming... and gifted with patience and understanding you wouldn't believe from the mother of one so rebellious as Marek! My own mother, bless her soul, would remind me time and again it was my side of the family showing in that boy.”  
  
Hulda had a hard time following – was old Thrym the _actual_ father of Marek, and not just his foster parent? Or was he talking about another Marek altogether – because the one Hulda knew didn't immediately strike her as a rebel; quite the contrary, even.  
  
“Kossuth only knows why a woman like A'hara could ever end up a slave,” the old wizard continued, replacing the magical spectacles on his nose with regular ones before carefully writing the label of the potion he'd been working on. “Her sorceric tendencies were latent even, only proven by the time Marek applied for Wizard schooling...”  
  
Hulda sprayed tea from her nose, and coughed violently. Assur Thrym quickly moved their potions' delicate ingredients to the dry half of the table.  
  
“A handkerchief in return for your discretion on this matter,” the old wizard said, offering Hulda his own hanky. It was as big as a kitchen towel, but clean.  
  
-”Your son's a _wizard_?” she squeaked, pinching her nose shut to get rid of the minty sensation in there.  
  
-”Unfortunately, no,” Thrym sighed. “Found too unruly and disobedient, too hell-bent on doing things his own way to be accepted into any academy. I never pressed the matter; Kossuth prevent any of those pragmatic donkeys there to discover the true nature of his magical affinity. Some scholars like to experiment on disappointing pupils, after all...” He took a deep breath. “I was very cross with Marek for it, at that time, for not stifling his pride and doing as he was bidden. I feared for his future – the only thing I could think of at the time was to get him to learn discipline at the hands of the 'gentlemen' at the capital's Military academy...”  
  
Hulda recognised the sound of sarcasm. The _gentlemen_ hadn't been gentle.  
  
“There's a reason why military training for youths extends to their sixteenth birthday, I learned,” the wizard said. “Consent of a parent is no longer needed after that, to knight a soldier. By the time I was allowed to see my son again, he'd already been taught to bow to his masters' every wish...” he drew a circle in the air around his own head, “... _including_ allowing them to draw a fancy little picture on his noggin. They're not just for decoration either, these knighting-tattoos, you know.”  
  
-”Oh, oh,” Hulda said, impatiently snapping her fingers, “... they're meant to intimidate the enemy and protect a Knight from feeling fear.” Feeling smug, she drummed a short, galloping beat on the tabletop and bounced up and down in her chair.  
  
Assur Thrym nodded.  
-”Correct, but inadequate. Their magic complements that of the Red Wizards' own tattoos like a lock fits around a key. A Thayan Knight's mind is utterly vulnerable, totally submissive to any Red Wizard who wields mind-affecting magic.”  
  
Hulda quit her bouncing, feeling cold despite being indoors. That knowledge was downright ghastly.  
She also felt a strange, renewed sympathy towards the unfortunate Zan, who had never busied himself much with any sort of spell that didn't let him put things on fire faster and more efficiently. He'd never learned any mind-affecting magic – he'd told Hulda as much, when he'd still been inclined to dispose of her in the forest. Marek must have felt more at ease around someone like him. Hulda suspected something else, too.  
  
-”Is that why a Transmuter with your skill is selling potions at hicks and thugs in a mere enclave, rather than live on Thaymount?” she asked.  
  
-”In here, we've just got that Naheeta to worry about,” the old Thrym clarified. “Horribly self-absorbed, that one, but also hopelessly incapable. She couldn't conjure a spark if she were made of flint, let alone dig around in Marek's mind or prance him around the enclave like a puppet on strings. Naheeta, if push comes to shove, I can deal with.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Late in the evening, a priest of Kossuth arrived and initiated the long and tedious ritual of raising someone from the dead – Hulda watched with rapt attention the spectacle unfolding in the workplace that doubled as her bedchamber. The Priest was a broad man with broad gestures, and while Hulda recognised some aspects from when the rare ceremony took place in her Temple in Silverymoon, many were new and intriguing. The main difference was that Marek's departed soul was not bid to come live among his loved ones again, but reminded of his duties towards his country and superiors. Kossuth, the god of fire, was placated with gifts of yet more incense burned in the braziers, as well as a precious stone that self-ignited in a shower of sparks at the invoking of Kossuth's name.  
The embers settled on the blackened bones lying ready, and their glow reduced but didn't leave entirely. A quiet, steady humming indicated the lingering but powerful magic. Hulda kept watching the bones for signs of regeneration as the Priest left the house again with Assur Thrym's blessings and a jingling purse. She had never before stayed to watch someone being reborn, but since it turned out to be much like watching paint dry, she dozed off, only to wake up from some unfamiliar sound or other every now and then: the soft pop of a newly regenerated joint snapping into place, or the metallic ticking of the brass incense-burners cooling off.  
In the dark of night, when he probably thought Hulda asleep, old Assur Thrym came stealing into the back room with a pillow and a blanket, gently tucking his skeleton son in. He ran a hand over the still fleshless face before covering it up, and tip-toeing out the door again.


	8. Back From the Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back? And guess who smells?

Hulda heard a moan; the blanket on the worktable moved.  
Marek – alive and well, physically whole and unblemished save for the tattoo on his head which, Hulda guessed, thwarted the regenerating magic with its own potency, pulled the covers off his face and sat upright with a grunt. Rubbing his brow, he looked at his feet and then rested his head in his hands.  
Hulda coughed to make her presence known.  
Marek jumped up so high it made Hulda flinch as well. The Thayan Knight immediately looked away and started to rearrange the blanket around his midsection. Apparently, it took one as outgoing as Zan to have the Knight tone down his modesty as much as he'd done back at the lake.  
  
-”Go alert the master of the house and tell him I have awoken,” he ordered, finding clothes near his feet and quickly donning them.  
  
Hulda gestured, pointing at her mouth and at her collar.  
  
”... Magical collar?” Marek tried, and when Hulda fervently nodded, he ran a hand over his scalp and went on: “There's supposed to be a password; let's see, ah... 'Speak when spoken to'? 'Speaking is silver'? No? '... Hello, my name is Marek'?”  
  
Hulda exhaled.  
  
-”Thank you,” she said, and then brought her hands up to her mouth to give a holler: ”Oo-hey! Oo-hoo! Master Thrym! Master of the hou-ouse! Someone here to see you!”  
  
Marek stared utterly befuddled at her, before he guessed what was going on.  
  
-“It's you,” he concluded. “Your voice – though I'd never have guessed my father would pick _that_ for a disguise...”  
  
-”He hasn't,” Hulda beamed. “It was my idea. Your dad is chummy like that.”  
  
-”Our guest has a way of keeping me on my toes, that much is true” the wizard announced his arrival as he came in, carrying a small pewter mug and offering Marek a sip. Hulda recognized the smell of Thayan breakfast.  
  
“Would you like some too, my dear?” Assur Thrym asked, seeing her ogle the mug.  
  
-”Have you got any scones? Scones with marmalade are great – except when it's rhubarb. Or gooseberry. Oh, or is there bread for toast, perhaps?” Hulda asked.  
  
On the workbench, Marek carefully stole a glance at his foster-parent's growing frown.  
Suddenly, the wizard hiccuped, and gave a hearty laugh.  
  
-”Oh, life may be an art-form... but I think our Hulda here has mastered it. There – this one's well-earned,” he said, and waved his hand over the mug before handing it to Hulda. The black drink now smelled of fresh-baked buns and strawberry-jam.  
  
-”This can't hardly be as energising as actual sweet buns for breakfast,” Hulda commented, after an experimental sip. Assur Thrym regarded her from under his bushy eyebrows.  
  
-”Prove me wrong,” he said, as if challenging her. Then he turned to Marek, and had him bow his head so he could investigate the tattooed patterns.  
  
“All is in order. On your feet now – there's an Enclave Guard out there that's in need of its captain. But first, you'll go and wash up.”  
  
Marek objected:  
  
-” _Ata_ , I washed right before -” he looked at Hulda, and didn't complete his sentence.  
  
-”A dead body has been lying on this workbench, son. Yours, of course, but that's beside the point,” Assur Thrym said. “Go wash, you could use a bit of relaxation: you're damn tense, as always. Speak with Naheeta when you're ready, she asked for you.”  
  
-”As you will, _Ata_ ,” Marek complied, and slid off the workbench into a pair of slippers standing ready.  
  
His father called him back when he was nearly at the door.  
  
-”Son – some tekkil, perhaps, to ease into the hardships of physical existence again?”  
  
-”Thank you, _Ata_ , but no,” Marek declined the offer, to Hulda's mild surprise. “Later, perhaps.”  


 

* * *

  
  
-”Saw that?” Assur Thrym asked Hulda when his son had left, as he unlocked her cage. “I know he craves it – but he's holding off, just to make me proud. And he does – he is a blessing to his old father.”  
  
The old man put the pillow in a basket, standing at the ready near the door. He muttered a spell of cleansing over the wooden surface, and produced a pot of bee's wax from somewhere which he used to give the workbench a polish. The causal, methodical sequence of the wizard's actions, combined with the provided slippers and the lack of emotionality in the conversation between father and son made Hulda suspect something.  
  
-”Has this happened before?” she asked.  
  
-”Presuming you mean raising Marek from the dead – yes, a couple of times. A few too many, considering the price of incense and of hazelnut-sized diamonds... Don't tell him that. I don't want to spoil him,” the old Thrym said in answer.  
  
-”And tekkil won't spoil him?” Hulda frowned. “That toxic stuff is sapping his will!”  
  
-”Something he's always had plenty of, and to spare,” the wizard snapped, “... and which isn't desirable for a Thayan Knight anyway.” He sighed. “Marek's road has been strenuous for him...  Name me one parent who's not hurting, when he sees his child suffer. I made use of what was ready at hand, and make sure it will always be available to him. I can't do more.”  
  
-”You can tell him that you care, and be a father to him instead of a master to a servant!”  
  
Assur Thrym went red in the face.  
  
-”Out!” he bellowed, “Afore I find a way to have your audacious mouth spew spiders and cockroaches instead of insults!”  
  
Severely taken aback by the easy-going wizard's transformation, Hulda ran outside.  


 

* * *

  
  
Peeking through the Emporium's paned windows, she noticed the old man taking up post behind the counter and turning his attention to his ledgers and lists. Hulda felt restless and nervous, and grabbed a bucket – some menial tasks to keep her body busy as she tried to order her thoughts was what she needed right now.  
  
She discovered that her breakfast made her screw up things better and faster than ever: the first bucketful she threw over the sink instead of into it, and when she returned to the well to fetch a second, she bumped her head against a crossbeam of its little barrel-tiled roof with such force she went all goggle-eyed. Reaching for her head and finding she was still holding the bucket when she nearly knocked herself out with it, she saw the thing bounce off the brickwork ledge once and then roll to the well's other side, where she couldn't reach with that accursed collar around her neck.  
A man's boot appeared, halting the runaway bucket's advance. Hulda's eyes followed a grey pant-leg up towards a vest of boiled leather, and a familiar, obsidian face.  
  
-”Someone like you shouldn't be running her legs off for these cattle-prodding humans,” Rhyl'lyn said, mustering said legs briefly. “They have no right.”  
  
It took a moment for Hulda to realise the elf hadn't recognised her. She stared at her feet and wrung her own, jet-black hands as she tried not to giggle. If not already amused by the elf's antics, she was simply happy to see him alive and well.  
  
”How does the likes of you get herself into this sort of trouble? If you tell me the names of your masters, I'll make sure you'll get out again,” the drow continued, and handed her her bucket back. “Hi, by the way – my name is Rhyl'lyn.”  
  
Hulda saw he had Pinky with him.  
  
-”Great, you brought it,” she said, discovering she could talk to him, and in an eye's blink she had grabbed her morningstar by the handle.  
  
Repercussion came immediately: a white-hot streak of pain jabbed at her throat, and the next moment, Hulda lay belly-up, staring at the sky. The hair on her head stood out strangely, she noted.  
Rhyl'lyn, frozen in place, was clutching Pinky with a bewildered look on his face.  
  
”Damn it,” Hulda softly cursed, and the elf's expression changed into... something equally bewildered, Hulda guessed, just with a hint of despair instead of fright.  
  
-”You're _her_ ,” he blurted.  
  
Hulda wound a lock of her white hair around her finger.  
  
-”Who are you talking about, my gentle-elf?” she innocently inquired – not doing a great job at sounding believable, or sane.  
  
-”Great,” Rhyl'lyn muttered, and put the morningstar down so he could cross his arms and look the other way.  
  
-”You came looking for me,” Hulda said as she sat upright, feeling overjoyed... and not only because now, she had a chance to improve her situation. “You had me thinking you were dead! That contingency-spell from Zan -”  
  
-”Pfff, noisy and flamboyant, but hardly effective. I jumped away in time,” the assassin shrugged.  
  
Hulda regarded him for an instant: she'd been thinking something about the drow was different.  
  
-”Rhyl'lyn – you eyebrows are gone.”  
  
The drow did not flinch, but neither did he clarify. Hulda guessed he must have jumped the wrong way, or not at all.  
  
“Thank you for coming to find me,” she sweetly said, instead of poking more fun at the poor man. She twiddled her feet and batted her eyelashes.  
  
-”Is acting like an underage girl considered charming among humans or something? Look, I just want to give you your damn morningstar back,” Rhyl'lyn was quick to burst her bubble. “I don't care about the mess you got yourself in – it's not my doing and it's not my business.”  
  
-”Ha, you came all the way from the Silver Marches to tell me that?” Hulda laughed. “That's...” She wanted to say 'true love', but was afraid Rhyl'lyn would damage his eyes if he'd roll them once more. “... Dedication,” she settled on.  
  
Now it was Rhyl'lyn's turn to laugh.  
  
-”You... You utterly daft woman; this is the absolute nearest enclave to the Silver Marches. I came on foot, even.”  
  
-”I'm in Proskur?" Hulda gasped.  
  
-”Closer – this is Loudwater. What you see here is Thay trying to thwart the Zhentarim and get a foothold along the Black Road,” the dark elf clarified.  
  
-”I didn't know you were that familiar with mercantile politics,” Hulda said, eying the drow with a doubtful look.  
  
-”There's a plaque outside the gate,” he pointed with his thumb. “Look, here's your weapon. I hope you didn't miss it. I just needed it really, really badly back there.” He held up Pinky to her.  
  
-”I can't accept the morningstar;” Hulda explained, “... this collar won't let me touch it, or any weapon.”  
  
Rhyl'lyn sighed.  
  
-”Great – just tell me where you want me to put it,” he said, throwing his hands into the air and taking to walking up and down, “so I can get rid of it, and get going again. I won't be using it either, not to mention it's crude, ugly, and absurdly heavy.”  
  
-”Sure,” Hulda said, getting up and brushing the dust off her clothes. “Place it in the hands of my brothers, Harald and Jonas Swanmantle in Silverymoon. I'm being held hostage here to force an unwholesome trade agreement, and they're trying to get my brothers to cooperate.”  
  
Rhyl'lyn stared.  
  
-”Hulda – if that's true, there's no way you'll survive if the Red Wizards suspect someone's blown the whistle on that plan. They'll kill you in your sleep and disintegrate your corpse. Which is what they'll do anyway if they can't get what they want, or even if they do get what they want, but don't want to risk you talking about their methods. It's better to find a rope and jump the wall come dark.”  
  
-”I can't use rope – I can't even use string,” Hulda explained, pointing at her collar.  
  
-”Aha. That'd be because they're afraid you'd garrotte the guard or so,” the elf guessed. “Have you tried a stocking?”  
  
-”I don't want to kill anyone!” Hulda objected. “Look, just go to Silverymoon, find my brothers. They'll expose this operation and authorities will do the rest. No-one's going to allow a Thayan enclave nearby ever again.”  
  
-”That would mean the end of Hulda Swanmantle, and you know it,” Rhyl'lyn said. Hulda sighed.  
  
-”Just – just give me time, then, alright? We'll think of something. Rent a room in the inn – I'll throw a bunch of wet tea leaves on the kitchen fire of the Magic Emporium when I want us to meet here, at the well – it should make for a nice amount of smoke. And pay a visit to the bath-house already...!”  
  
-”But the rooms of this inn are over-priced and – what do you mean, pay a visit to the bath-house? You think I -”  
  
-”You stink,” Hulda nodded.  
  
Rhyl'lyn pulled a face.  
  
-”I smell as good as any man who's travelled the distance with your stupid lump of iron dragging him down,” he complained.  
  
-”But you did that anyway - for me?” Hulda tittered, “... That's so adorable...! Now take that bath.”


	9. Modest Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take bath house. Add naked man. Add other naked man. Add Hulda. Enjoy.

Hulda saw Assur Thrym peering into a crystal ball when she re-entered the kitchen. He'd made himself comfortable at the round table, with his feet up on a stool and a drink handy.  
  
-”Why are you scrying in a kitchen?” Hulda asked, curious. The wizard did not look up but raised an index finger to signal for patience. Hulda saw his teacup standing empty on its saucer, and filled him up. “It is because there's tea?”   
  
-”Tea, and there's really good _Weave_ over here. The messages are coming through crisp and clear,” Thrym said, and sipped without taking his eyes off the ball.  
  
That moment, the Emporium's doorbell rang. Marek came in and treated himself to a bit of bread and a cup of water. The old Thrym looked up from his crystal ball with a frown.  
  
-”What are you doing here? You ought to be up to your chin in hot water and soaking. The bath-house is huge, how could you possibly miss it,” he said.  
  
Hulda thought she could hear a million alarm bells tolling between her ears. Marek drained his cup.  
  
-”Forgiveness, _Ata_ , but I ran into Naheeta on my way there and...”  
  
-”Oh, Kossuth curse the one who accepted the bribe that made her a Red Wizard, and gave her an excuse to waste everybody's time,” Thrym sighed, placing a piece of cloth over his crystal ball and wrapping it up.   
  
Hulda figured she had to get out and warn Rhyl'lyn before Marek found out he was there.  
  
-”Oh my, didn't I fetch any more water than that? Better go out and haul another bucket...!” she chirped, and grabbed it by the handle, forgetting that it was still full and spilling water everywhere.  
  
Assur Thrym harrumphed.  
  
-”Hm – no more coffee for you,” he grumbled, and rose from his seat to place his cup and saucer in the sink.  
  
-”Is everything alright, _Ata_?” Marek inquired, stepping aside to let Hulda and her mop pass, as she tried to swab herself a way out of the kitchen and into the street.  
  
-”Why yes, son,” the wizard said. “News has come from Thaymount: if negotiations go well, our esteemed guest Hulda here can be returned to her family as early as next year.”   
  
Hulda's face fell.  
  
-”I'd be happy to escort her, in that event,” Marek offered.  
  
-”I'm afraid you'll have been promoted by then,” Assur Thrym replied, offering him a peculiar smile. He moved around the table to place his hands on the Knight's shoulders. “I have received word from Aznar Thrul's assistants that you are accepted into his personal guard. I've sent for the most competent tattooist for the ritual that will complete you, my son!”  
  
Hulda saw Marek stare, and then fall to his knees.  
  
-”Gratitude, _Ata_ , for doing this for me! Gratitude, for showing me the way...!”  
  
-”Rise, boy – a Zulkir's Champion does not scrape or grovel. Imagine, once you've received the facial mark, you'll have been cured of your defection, and nothing will prevent you from standing as proud as any Thayan. Up, up...!” He urged his son onto his feet.  
  
-” _Ata_ , I've been asked by Mistress Naheeta to escort a trading caravan today.”  
  
-”Call it off,” Assur Thrym said with a dismissive gesture. “The tattooist arrives this evening. See to it that your men are aware, since he's not the most patient of wizards. And make sure you're bathed before joining us for dinner, damn you. Any moment now and you'll be smelling like a Rashemi berserker.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Hulda ran to the Bath-house as fast as her feet would carry her, taking the steps that led to the monumental entrance two at a time, and forgetting to take the ones that connected the vestibule to the lower-lying antechamber with the attendant's desk altogether. Painfully bruised, but thanking the Moonmaiden that there was no-one in sight, she grabbed a pile of towels and – without removing her footwear or donning a robe – raced through the hallway that gave onto the men's dressing room.  
  
-”Rhyl'lyn...!” she hissed at the door, but she could hear nothing. Hands full, she pushed the squeaky door open with her bottom and scuffled inside backwards.  
“Rhyl'lyn! If you're here, cover up, for the love of Light!”  
  
Looking over her shoulder revealed no-one being present. However, the neatly folded stack of clothes on the bench against the wall looked familiar. She quickly put them on the top of her stack.  
Out in the antechamber up front, a little bell was rung – Marek's voice called out to the attendant.  
Cursing under her breath, Hulda, having trouble balancing the tower of towels and clothes on the slippery floor and sweating profusely from the moist warmth, made for the bathing area behind the purple-and-crimson silken curtain.  
Only one bath was occupied, she saw – the Vhaeraunite hadn't noticed her yet, what with the clattering of a nearby fountain, and was watching his toes forming ripples in the steaming water.  
  
-”Rhyl'lyn! Can't you hear when I'm calling? Get out, now!” Hulda fussed, trying to keep her voice down.  
  
No-where in the world had she ever heard anyone make such a commotion just by splashing water around – it was a good thing the drow had picked the biggest bath for himself or there wouldn't have been much water left in it. Hulda side-stepped out of a puddle, and flung a towel at the wide-eyed and positively angry elf.  
  
-”See now, this – _this_ is crossing a _line_...!” he warned her, reaching for the floating towel with his free hand.   
  
-”For crying out loud, keep it quiet!” Hulda squeaked, dropping another towel by accident. “Marek is headed this way, and as it turns out he's the Captain of the Guard and he's going to call the alarm on you and drag you over to Thaymount to have you locked up and tried for espionage in your stark-naked, sorry butt so just. Get. Out...!”   
  
She thought she could hear the protesting hinges of the door of the dressing room behind her already.  
  
-”No, your Marek's dead - I heard his bones rattle in his armour when I prodded his corpse,” Rhyl'lyn said quietly, slowly, and over-pronunciating. “Now kindly leave me a dry towel, go back the way you came, and find a corner to stand in while you think about your actions, alright?”  
  
Hulda pulled a face, and set the pile of towels down. This called for drastic measures.  
She held the stubborn drow's gaze before turning around to grab the dressing room's curtains, and pulling them wide.  
Marek nearly got a heart-attack, and slammed into a bench on his way down when he tripped over his own breeches with a yelp. Hulda shouted an apology, and shut the curtains again.  
Rhyl'lyn's scepticism about the urgency of the matter had all but evaporated, going by how fast he got out of the bath. Hulda started pushing him towards the women's dressing room even as she was helping him to cover up with more towels.  
  
-”If he comes after you, just pretend you're a girl and scream like one,” she suggested. Knowing Marek, he was not one to look twice.  
  
Pushing the elf through the blue-and-green curtains of the women's room caused at least four voices to squeal, however, and there was no telling if Rhyl'lyn's was one of them. When he stepped on her toes trying to get out, Hulda shooed him the other way, pushing his belongings into his hands while she ushered him out the door and into the hallway.  
Marek called for her, and with a clumsy half-curtsy, half-stumble and a little wave of her hand, Hulda passed by the embarrassed women and into the bathing area again.  
The Thayan Knight – robed and ready, this time - was eyeing the mess Hulda had made with a worried look on his face.  
  
-”What are you _doing_ here?” he asked.  
  
-”Towel-duty,” Hulda said and tried to make it sound obvious. She picked up the ones that lay soaking in the puddles, and decided to disregard the one in the large bath where she couldn't reach. Marek's doubtful look told Hulda she needed to expand on that excuse.  
“I sort of... displeased the bath-house's attendant,” she pretended to admit, staring at the floor. “I am to pick up and sort all towels left behind.”  
  
-”But Hulda, you're wearing your boots in here,” Marek pointed out.  
  
-”He said _'right now'_ ,” Hulda replied. She tried to look really adamant about this, and as she had hoped, Marek was the first to break eye-contact and let the matter drop. She daintily picked up the remainder of the towels, and announced her leave-taking:  
  
“So... I'll let you have your bath then. Have a good one!”


	10. The Timing of Troubles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It never rains, it pours.

Later that day, after sorting books in the Emporium's attic all evening, Hulda arrived to a most disquieting scene downstairs.

The tattooist had arrived and had set up shop in the back room of the house: his trolleys and rolling cabinets spilled magical implements and foci, while vials with dyes gleamed ominously – some already unpacked and arrayed on shelves, some standing about on the floor in boxes lined with straw or velours. Their crystal luster in the dim room looked to Hulda like the glint in the eye of a Baatazu with inflicting pain in mind. A beetle the size of a kitten – a familiar, most likely – skittered trough the mess which had at its very center a heavy oaken chair which could have been, were it not upholstered with velvet and brass rivets, a piece of furniture from a torture chamber.  
Leaning back in this uncomfortable chair was Marek, and although his wrists and ankles were not yet secured by the broad leather belts on the legs and armrests, and the vices meant to immobilise his head not yet screwed tight, the two men hovering above him like carrion birds, and what they were saying, was about as unsettling.

-”We should go for the _Purging Flame_ -design,” Marek's father suggested, “to honour Kossuth, and please the Zulkir.”

-”I can't fit that design under the one he already has on his head,” the tattooist, a lanky wizard about Thrym's age and with only marginal amounts of his original skin tone showing, replied. “A _Roaring Skull_ -tattoo on the other hand would fit nicely. Your son's sharp facial features would bring out the lines of the jaw and eyes quite nicely.”

-”Zulkir Aznar Thrul is an Evoker, not a Necromancer,” Assyr Thrym objected. “Find a way to make the Purging Flame fit – you're only suggesting the Skull because, while you're an Enchanter, you're dabbling in Necromancy, yourself.”

-”Enchantments will be my one and true love though – it proves so useful at home, where there are so many tattooed Knights. Malleable minds they have; it's like slipping your hand into a glove.” He looked at his colleague. “The Zulkir has plenty of Roaring Skulls in his guard,” he said. “They're all the rage on Thaymount; I've been wanting to draw one, myself, for ages.”

-”Marek is a Knight and captain of the Enclave Guard, not some slave you can conduct experiments on,” Thrym fulminated. “Draw the Flame...!”

The tattooist placed a knobby hand on the top of Marek's tattooed head.

-”When I draw the Flame and I so much as touch the Pouncing Scorpion on his scalp, the magics will intermingle and the boy's mind will run from his ears like wax from a candle. You'll have a drooling vegetable instead of a Captain of the Guard.”

Assur Thrym shot the wizard a glare that was hot like coals. Hulda wondered if she'd just witnessed the tattooist threatening to flunk the tattooing ritual on purpose.

-”Hrmm,” Marek's father only said, and the tattooist nodded his approval.

-”So, the Skull then. I'll blacken the eyelids and outline the sockets, fangs go here.. all the way to there... But I'm a bit uncertain about the nose. I'd make it black from the bridge down, but seen from the side it would be less than ideal... It's quite long.”

-”An other design then,” Thrym tried. The other wizard tittered and poked Marek's nose with an instrument.

-”No need – see, I could cut it off halfway like so, and expose the nasal bone inside to achieve the typical skull-look. A small correction; the result will be most fearsome. Your Zulkir will be quite pleased,” he said. Hulda felt herself go queasy.

-”You're going to cut off his nose,” Assur Thrym summarised, uneasiness in his voice apparent as well.

-”It's a trade-off: something lost, something gained,” the other wizard said as he re-arranged some vials and pulled one of his rolling cabinets closer. “I'll be ready to get started in a bit – I will fetch my stool, which someone seems to have neglected to bring in. Meanwhile, secure the boy. The pain will be severe, as you know; your son might stir while I'm at work.”

-”Marek didn't flinch when he received the Scorpion,” Thrym huffed.

-”Then your previous tattooist didn't do his job very well... or your boy either took essence of tekkil, _or_ he fainted after the first prick,” the other man said matter-of-factly, as he turned towards the door. “Pick one.”

Assur Thrym glared at him again, but the effect was lost on the scrawny wizard, who presently passed Hulda on his way out.

“You,” he snapped at her, “You forgot my stool. No, don't bother, I'll get it myself – but if you don't have something for me to drink by the time I get back, I'll make up for the shortcomings in Thrym's disciplining of his servants, myself!”

Hulda saw him pace out the door, towards the cart that stood there.

Inside, Asur Thrym was talking to his son.

-”Won't you rather have a small dose of tekkil, just in case?” he asked, but Marek shook his head.

-”I'll be fine, _Ata_.”

-”A mouthful of wine then. The ritual will take hours; you'll be thirsty before then.” He noticed Hulda was standing in the doorway, and gestured for her to come closer.

-”Say your good-byes now, girl. After tonight, our Marek as we know him will be a new man. He'll serve our glorious nation as a Zulkir's Champion: obedience in the flesh and, since he'll be marked with both the Skull and Scorpion, unmatched in combat,” he said, and Hulda picked up the slightest note of regret in the old man's voice. Hulda could tell the whole affair pained him more than he'd admit.

 

* * *

 

-”Marek,” she said as Thrym left to find something in the adjacent room, “... you don't have to do this. Your father needs you, here – more than Aznar Thrul needs another painted freak with his nose cut off.”

-”I must earn my foster father's approval; I must honour his generosity for taking me in, and I must rid myself of my unwholesome deformity,” he quietly, mechanically said. It came out like a mantra, a rehearsed line, likely spoken a million times in pain or sobbed in a pillow.

Hulda knew that with 'unwholesome deformity', he meant the innate magical aptitude he inherited from his mother's side, and she frowned when Marek looked away with an ease that made it seem as if he didn't care.

-”That's utter rubbish, and you're a fool for believing it. I'm telling you, your father -” she squinted. Something was off.

“Did you take tekkil again?” she asked. Marek just nodded.

-”The pain of the ritual is legendary. I'd make a Nybor-joke, but I'm afraid the drug won't let me,” he said, and let escape a feeble, silly chuckle.

-”Marek,” Hulda tried again, but then the old Thrym came in with a goblet of wine.

-”Drink, my boy. And you, dear girl, if you'd be so kind as to help me with some ledgers, in the shop, I'd be most obliged,” he said and after pushing the goblet in Marek's hands, gently started ushering Hulda out the door. She guessed he tried to spare her the sight of things to come; in fact, he tried to spare himself, as well.

-”I knew it,” a familiar voice rang through the shop. “Assur, you're too soft, and your slaves are too slow and lacking respect! I'll show you how it's done,” he said in a threatening tone, and raised his walking stick as he set course for Hulda.

She readied to defend herself, but before the red wizard was even half-way, a surge of magic leapt at her and gripped her heart like a vice, radiating pain like a white-hot bar of iron would shed heat. When the agony subsided, Hulda opened her eyes to see the shop interior having shifted to an odd, lop-sided angle, and realised she must have doubled over and hit the floor without noticing it through the searing flashes of pain.

-”You're out of line, Tugan!” Assur Thrym hissed, helping Hulda to her feet. She felt the pain in her chest dwindle slowly but steadily, while her still-throbbing muscles bunched up strangely beneath her clothes. Her fed-upness replaced her fear, and she covered the short distance between herself and the tattooist in three quick strides before picking up a hefty, silver-reinforced tome from a shelf and giving the wizard such a wallop it sent him crashing into the baskets of scrolls a couple feet away.

By now, Hulda knew that Red Wizards used spells invented by a certain Nybor to punish slaves, as well as making them work harder. She thought she could spot an imperfection about that concept, though, as the Tugan the tattooist tried to discern up from down.

She wished she could have offered to throw him into the Alchemist's Fire next, but her collar prevented her from doing more than planting her feet and waving her book in defiance.

-”You threaten me?” Tugan the Tattooist guffawed, getting up, and he aimed his staff a second time.

Hulda realised she ought to have cast a protective spell of her own instead of taunting a Red Wizard – if her collar would even have let her. She braced for the pain that would come, but behind her, Assur Thrym chanted a short string of syllables and the tattooist's spell went awry.

That moment, the bells above the entrance door jingled and a female Red Wizard came marching in.


	11. Liquidation Sale at the Magic Emporium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Have you ever been so mad you made the room smell funny?

Hulda had seen her and her rooster-feather fan before.

-”Where is she?” Naheeta demanded of Thrym, pushing the tattooist aside so hard he hit the baskets with the scrolls a second time. “Did you honestly believe you could hide a Selûnite from me, old man?”

-”So it's true then – you're the one who's been recruiting for the Church of Shar in here... and the one that has led my son astray. Tell me, does the Dark Lady approve of you acting in public like this?” the old wizard said, reaching through the golden hoop on his belt and pulling a tall, ebony staff out of the pocket-dimension behind it. Naheeta shared a little smile with him and held up her feather fan.

A gesture of the female wizard turned the object into an ornate staff of obsidian. Assur Thrym frowned.

”I've tested your fan on two occasions, and neither time did it show any traces of magic,” he said.

-”I left that one at home,” Naheeta smiled. “Before you stands Naheeta the Priestess, not Naheeta the mediocre Red Wizard – and she'll have your -”

She was interrupted by a blinding flash of lightning coming from atop a high shelf somewhere in the back of the store. It targeted Naheeta's staff and very nearly had her drop the thing.

-”Looks like my Emporium's wards don't take kindly to you holding that toy up at me like that,” Assur Thrym said, and aimed his own staff at her.

-”No-one leaves this place alive,” Naheeta answered. With a signal of her hand, more men and women pooled through the door – some holding swords, some wands.

The old wizard let fly a colourful spell, one that had two of the newcomers instantly turn to stone while another suddenly vanished altogether. Shelves and cabinets were knocked over as the crowd advanced through the cluttered emporium between streaks of crackling lightning, and Hulda had to duck twice or receive gobs of acid from returned fire in the head. One assailant burst into flame soon after, when Thrym stopped the pea-sized pellet of someone's fireball prematurely with an invisible barrier. A hand turning her around by her shoulder told Hulda there was still one particular monkey on her back, though:

-”Infinite curses – but your life-force will get me out of here,” the tattooist said, and Hulda felt a necrotic chill crawl up her neck and down her spine when the leaching magic took hold.

She broke the spell with a roar of defiance and swung her book again, this time causing the man to crash into the glass display case where Assur Thrym kept the oils and ointments.

Dripping with the fatty substances, the enraged wizard groped for Hulda a second time, but a stray orb of fire passing by set his red robes alight, together with a rack of arrows and quivers and the entire wall of books, and Hulda made a beeline for the back room.

 

* * *

 

Curiously, Marek was still sitting in the chair the way she'd left him. The empty goblet was laying in his lap. For some reason, the battle didn't register with him.

-”Get up!” Hulda shouted, but the way the Knight's head was lolling when he tried to look her in the eye made her suspect something was off. Her eyes travelled down to the goblet.

”The wine?” she asked, fearing the worst.

-” _Ata_ – my father put tekkil in it,” Marek said, his speech as sluggish as his movements. “I'm sorry, Hulda.”

That was about it – Hulda had enough.

-”Will you stop feeling sorry, and man up for a change?” she shouted, putting her book down and shaking Marek like a feather pillow. “Get up! Your father needs you – some Sharran madwoman...”

That moment, a fierce blast shook the room and Assur Thrym came flying through the doorway. His condition was lamentable, Hulda saw, and he couldn't quite get up on his own accord. She was beside him in a blink but when she manipulated the positive energy needed to heal his injuries, there was a barked command and her magic got pushed away from the wounded Thrym to disolve into nothingness. Hulda drew her hands away instinctively: she had recognised the foul feeling of negative energy, and when she looked up, she understood.

Naheeta stood in the doorway, her obsidian staff aimed at her.

-”I bet it's a disguise,” the wizardess mused, looking Hulda up and down, '... as there seems to be no-one else in here. Hiding in plain sight: creative, but ultimately futile, as your blood will still flow as red on our altar. Won't you say, Marek, my pet?”

Hulda shot Marek a glance, but when she saw him sit there, his hands clawing into the armrests of his chair, his expression completely took her off guard. His hazel eyes were blazing and something told her that anyone who stepped between him and the priestess now would be instantly reduced to a cinder.

”Pleasant though this merry gathering is, I'm afraid it is time to say our farewells,” the woman continued. “To you as well, dear Marek – I could've had this girl's head on a platter weeks ago if it weren't... What is that _smell_?” she suddenly asked, and tried to pin-point the origin of the sudden, immensely powerful strawberry-perfume.

A moment of distraction – it could be all that was needed.

In less than the time needed to think of it, Hulda had snatched the pocket dimension-ring from Assur Thrym's belt and hooked it over the magic staff the moment it fired. With the business end of the weapon safely on another plane of existence, the only effect noticeable to Hulda was a distant crackling coming from within the golden hoop.

The Sharran woman, after her initial moment of alarm and befuddlement, wanted to pull back but Hulda had sprung to her feet and pushed the ring all the way past the woman's elbow and up to her armpit. The priestess uttered a frightened gasp – what with her right arm out of sight all of a sudden – and Hulda rounded up with a high kick to the sternum.

Naheeta fell, arms flailing – one where Hulda could see it, at least – back against her remaining followers and onto the shop's chequered floor-tiles on the other side of the door. Hulda closed it as quickly as she could and rammed the bolt in place.

 

* * *

 

Marek, meanwhile, had thrown himself out of his chair and now sat watching his father's lifeless body. The Knight's face didn't betray any emotions, but the hand that shut the old wizard's eyelids trembled.

Hulda heard the priestess talking on the other side of the door:

-”... suits them. Torch it. Feed the flames; everyone's expecting the old Thrym to accidentally blow up his shop anyway, sooner or later – why not oblige them?”

The message was followed up by the sounds of earthenware and glass shattering and of command words being spoken. Hulda thought she could already feel the door against her ear warming up.

-”Marek, we've got a problem on our hands,” she tried, but the Thayan just curled up on the floor and looked the other way. “Look,” she said urgently, “your father wouldn't want you to grieve at a moment like this -”

-”I don't,” came the morose reply. “I ought to feel something, but I don't. I can't. I can't even feel regret for not feeling sad.”

It was the tekkil, of course, making him indifferent. All the more laudable was the stunt that he'd pulled only moments before, when he made the room smell funny.

-”You were mad at Naheeta only moments ago,” Hulda told him. “You can still feel angry, can't you? Don't you feel angry with Naheeta for getting away with this? Because she will if no-one -”

She yelped when the Knight jumped up and grabbed her arm. Opening the door to the shop, he shoved her in. Flames roared left and right and Hulda had to crouch to keep her head out of the thickening layer of smoke. Marek's boots passed her by, then, and she heard him push aside some toppled-over furniture before something soft drooped over her head.

-”This one,” he told her. “Don't let it catch fire.”

Hulda took a look at the bundle. It was a cloak with silver-thread embroidery.

-”You mean this isn't a fire-resistant one? That's your plan? We're in a burning magic-shop and we're going to dress up in cloaks that _aren't_ fire-resistant?” Hulda squeaked.

-”They're waiting outside with swords and arrows,” Marek coughed, sounding angry.”Don it.”

He disappeared into the back room again, and Hulda, throwing the cape over her shoulders, followed suit. Marek had already one leg in a familiar-looking mage-wrought greave and sabaton.

“Help me with this,” he said, handing over the breastplate.

-”Is your armour fire-resistant?” Hulda asked, hopeful. She felt her throat itch and her eyes burn from the invading smoke, and she was sweating like a horse that had just ran a league across the burning plains of the Abyss. But the Knight, adjusting his pauldrons, shook his head.

-”Water-resistant,” he clarified. “Seeing as when I first died...” he moved over to open a trapdoor located just beside Hulda's cage in the corner; “... it was from drowning.”

Hulda felt the coolness of water in the dark below.

A beam cracked somewhere, and there was a loud crash in the store that sent a cloud of sparks flying all the way into the workshop. Flames licked the posts on either side of the door.

-”I can't enter the sewers!” she yelled, pointing at her collar. Marek, still going about putting on his armour, moved over and gave Hulda a shove.

With a gasp, she fell into the stagnant water, sputtering and coughing and attempting to keep her head on the right side of its surface – even though the air was becoming quickly unsuitable or breathing now. Diving, Hulda tried to see if there was an underwater passage or a secret door. She found nothing a human being could fit through, and when she couldn't hold her breath any longer, she re-emerged only to be treated on a lungful of acrid smoke.

-”Make room,” Marek's voice came, and Hulda's head touched the underside of the masonry ceiling when the fully armoured Thayan entered the water with a splash, sinking to the bottom like a brick. Above him, the hatch fell shut with a bang.

Hulda felt something tugging her ankle and she dipped her head into the water to look. Marek was beckoning her, a trio of bluish wisps lighting his face in an eerie manner. Hulda had seen those lights before, in the forest near Beorunna's Well. So that had been Marek's magic, too.

Hulda watched the Knight lie down on the bottom of the – inexplicably clean – sewer.

-”It's a well,” he told Hulda. His voice sounded strange, submerged like that, and there were no bubbles when he spoke. He'd arranged around him, on the bottom, several medium-sized bags and a quiver of sticks; Hulda guessed these were magical items salvaged in haste. It was a testament to a Thayan Knights' valour to know that the burning building was near to collapsing when Marek decided he wanted to go shopping.

-”There's a well?!” Hulda shouted incredulously, and noticed an unseen, tingling force enabling her to speak and breathe freely underwater: it had to be the magical cape at work. She swam to the bottom. “Had I known this, I wouldn't have had to drag all those buckets all the way across the enclave,” she grumbled.

-”Father thinks the water tastes funny,” Marek replied. Hulda smiled and poked at one of the blue wisps.

-”You realise you cast this spell while sleeping?”

-”... So I've been told,” the Knight said. “Sleep is where I go to... be myself, I guess. I never wanted anything to manifest like that, though, but my father noticed. And Naheeta, when she was recruiting at the Military Academy.”

-”She used it against you, didn't she?” Hulda asked, receiving a nod in return. It was clear as day that Thayan society, based on merit in the field of wizardry, despised anyone born with something as intuitive, or basically as unfair as innate magic. It was a perfect thing to blackmail someone over... as the Sharran priestess had likely done. Hulda picked up a rock from the bottom to hold on to – she just kept floating back up. “I'd have loved to see what you could do if you'd been born in Silverymoon... or basically anywhere. It's clear that you have a rare talent.”

Hulda looked at the Knight. He just lay there on his back, almost as if relaxing, but his eyes were affixed to the ceiling with the trapdoor above as if wanting to burn holes in there just by looking.

Hulda understood, and she scooted closer to lie down beside him.

-”Marek,” she said, “... we're surrounded by water. No-one will notice when you cry just a little... ”

The Thayan bit his lip and his gaze softened.

Nothing more was said after that, and all there was left to do was listen to the sound of Assur Thrym's Magic Emporium coming down bit by bit as the fire raged invisibly above their heads.


	12. Clash of Character

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Would you look at that - it's the guy who means well. There's always room for another smartmouth in this story, but does he know when to put a foot in it?

Hulda guessed it had to be an hour before sunrise when she and Marek came crawling from under the debris. The ash clung to her wet hair and clothes and she shivered uncontrollably. Marek had to lay down for a bit because, since Hulda's collar wouldn't let her cast any spells other than the healing ones, getting out of the well and through the mess on top of the trapdoor without the help of magic had been extremely difficult in a water-lodged suit of plate armour.  
  
-”And now?” Hulda asked through clattering teeth.  
  
Marek rolled onto his stomach and got up, not without effort, to collect his gear.  
  
-”Some place to lay low,” he suggested. Hulda followed his gaze towards the tall building with columns all around: the bath-house. ”There's stoking-rooms downstairs,” Marek said and pointed at the servants' entry near the back. “The fire never goes out completely, so we could dry up a bit there and regain our strength.”  
  
They did their best to quietly sneak towards the bath-house, but Hulda thought she could hear Marek's armour sloshing with each step over the sound of her own teeth hammering away at one another. She was the first to reach the archway that hid the little door, and quickly ducked underneath. Ordering her teeth to cease the ruckus for a moment, she tried to hear if anyone was inside – there wasn't. But she didn't hear Marek's armour anymore, either.  
Peering around the corner, Hulda saw he was just standing there right next to the wall like a statue.  
Then, she saw the glint of something metallic near his throat that wasn't black mage-wrought steel, and the hand that held it there.  
  
-”That must have been a lot of tea leaves on the kitchen fire, Hulda,” Rhyl'lyn's voice came from behind one of the columns, before he stepped into view.  
  
-”You gave me a scare there, Rhyl'lyn,” Hulda sighed. “Let him go; Marek's on our side now.”  
  
-”Is he really?” the elf didn't sound convinced. “First he was, and then he turned out not to be, so why take a chance? Get inside, I'll handle this.”  
  
Hulda stepped up and grabbed the drow by his vest.  
  
-”No, you get inside. Any moment now, we'll be spotted, and I'm too damn cold for this nonsense...!”  
  
She shoved the elf through the door as well as he let her, before slipping through, herself. Behind her, Marek quietly closed it again.  
The room they found themselves in was nearly half-full with coal and wood for kindling, but it was warm and even sufficiently lit by the glow of fire coming from downstairs.  
Marek started taking off his wet armour.  
  
-”We have a couple more hours before the enclave wakes up – better use that to rest. I'll stand guard, if you like,” he offered.  
  
-”No you won't,” Rhyl'lyn said. “You can't be trusted. I'll stay awake until morning.”  
  
The Thayan Knight frowned.  
  
-”As will I – if you hold a knife against my throat while I'm awake, what might you do when I'm asleep?”  
  
-”Fine then – you stay awake too,” the drow shot back.  
  
Hulda sighed as she got down to rest.  
  
-”Gosh you guys, try not to bash each other's head in while I'm napping – nurse Hulda is rationing spells and won't be healing the boo-boos.”  
  
It seemed to shut them up nicely for the time being, and Hulda closed her eyes with a feeling of satisfaction.  


 

* * *

  
  
Daylight shone through the cracks in the door when she woke to the men's hushed conversation. Marek was sitting opposite the drow, his armour and shield dry and polished beside him together with the other stuff he'd salvaged from the Emporium, and he was carefully sharpening his sword as he spoke to a sceptical and displeased Rhyl'lyn, who was lounging on the logs near the door.  
  
-”A Knight's training is rigorous and sometimes lethal; I can hardly call my enlisting as one 'yellow',” the Thayan said, sounding cross.  
  
-”That's not what I'm talking about; you're just picking the easiest route out of accepting your responsibilities in moral matters, following orders blindly,” Rhyl'lyn replied, annoyed. Though the men weren't talking loudly, the growing tension in their argument had to be what had woken Hulda from her sleep.  
“I know your kind,” the drow went on. “You're a Red Wizard's pawn at best – at worst, his sock puppet: spineless without the hand up your backside...! You're sworn to do your masters' bidding to the letter, without thinking, without hesitation – you're nothing but a tool in the hands of these maniacs. I have no qualms about leaving a tool behind, or better still – make sure no-one's ever going to use it against me...!”  
  
-”Don't speak of what you know nothing about, drow!” Marek rose, not with a start, but slowly and deliberately. Rhyl'lyn was taken aback, and Hulda realized that this was the Thayan Knight's tattoo-magic in action – the fact that it manifested only now told her Marek had disposed of all reasons to see him as an ally.  
“Your species doesn't comprehend honour, or even wants to,” he said with disdain. “We Knights sacrifice everything to further a greater goal: choice, identity – _everything_. You think you are tough, fighting men from the shadows, slipping knives between ribs from behind. I've fought summoned monstrosities the size of this _building_ as a trainee, ordered not to protect myself but a wizard I'd never even met before. It takes more willpower than anything, more still if you know that a Red Wizard would first-handedly kill dozens of Knights on the battlefield if that would give him a strategic advantage. So don't call me weak-willed, or spineless, or a tool. I'm a _weapon_ , its worth measured by its purity and efficiency.”  
  
-”You got a Red Wizard killed,” Rhyl'lyn reminded him, battling the intimidating magic and emerging victorious... by a hair. “You were sworn to protect the one you let die there, in that desolation.”  
  
-”Zan was a friend – or someone as close to a friend as I ever had. But I swore an oath to another first,” Marek said. “My loyalty is still untainted.” His ice-cold stare nearly ground Rhyl'lyn to dust when he continued, “I had found a way to let him live and still stay true to my objectives. I managed to protect him even though his own mission and his survival weren't necessary or even desirable for some. All was going well – until you came.”  
  
There was a rumour outside, and everyone in the room got on their feet. Marek signalled to stay put, grabbed his quiver of wands and quickly ran out the door, grabbing a small leather purse from the things from the Emporium as he went. Hulda could see him stop to listen in front of a narrow alleyway opposite the street, dip his hand inside the purse to take something out, and then turn invisible.  
  
-”Damn it Ryl'lyn, I almost got him until you blew it!” Hulda said as soon as Marek had disappeared from sight.  
  
-”You were going to shank him too?” the Vhaeraunite asked, flipping a thin dagger from his sleeve.  
  
-”What? No! Put that away, you daft idiot – no, I meant I nearly got him to realize there's nothing for him here. He wasn't nearly as intense until you decided to open your big mouth. He's salvageable, Rhyl'lyn. He has a good heart, and he's got the gift of Sorcery – something his fellow Thayans would spurn or maybe even kill him for if they knew. His Knighthood, his tekkil addiction... they're all results from his father trying to make him successful in Thayan society.”  
  
-”Some father he has,” Rhyl'lyn said, “Coming from a dark elf, I'm sure that means something.”  
  
-”Thayans are a twisted bunch,” Hulda admitted, shaking her head with a sigh. “But these two loved one another, even if neither would show their feelings. Marek did everything to please his parent, and now that the old Thrym is dead, he's dying on the inside trying to give meaning to his own existence. He doesn't realise what he can be outside these walls. He has turned his back on the Church of Shar already, even if it means they'll kill him if they find him. He can turn his back on Thay also, if he can just let go.”


	13. Escape From the Enclave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hulda's slave collar is OP and needs to be nerfed. Easier said than done, and how does a live chicken fit into a daring escape from the enclave?

Marek returned to them a short while later. Outside, the enclave was alive with people running and shouting, it seemed.  
  
-”I arranged for a diversion,” the Thayan Knight announced, “so we can slip past the guards and hide in the forest. I'm going to get you out of here, Hulda.”  
  
Her mouth fell open.  
  
-”... An escape? Doesn't this equal betrayal?” she asked, baffled.  
  
-”When my father died, the task of securing you until the trade agreement with Silverymoon is factual fell to me. Seeing as the local chapter of the Church of Shar is now out to kill you, the best I can do is relocate you,” the Thayan explained. “The drow can come with – until we're well outside the enclave walls. Then he leaves, or I'll kill him.”  
  
-”I'd love to see you try,” the Vhaeraunite said, crossing his arms before his chest and leaning back against the door-post.  
  
Marek didn't answer right away, but gave the elf a single look that said, ' _oh really?_ ' before emptying the quiver of wands on the floor in front of Rhyl'lyn's feet.  
  
-”That one evaporates a man instantly,” he pointed, “... the blue one sucks the moist out of any living thing, and has it walk out the door like a watery homunculus. The red wand sends you to one of the layers of the Nine Hells – Avernus, I think, and the grey one straight into the Bloodwars. The one with the brass rivets summons a powerful automaton from the plane of Mechanus to do my every bidding, and who'll be – as you may know – nigh impervious to an assassin's pointy toys.” The Knight held up a single, triangular wand of carved ivory. “This one just lets me turn a person into a fat bug... which I then squash under my boot. Demonstration?” he asked.  
  
Hulda doubted if Marek, his sorceric powers long suppressed and long neglected, could wield any of these without help. She doubted her saying so would improve the situation, however.  
Rhyl'lyn, meanwhile, pulled a face.  
  
-”Any time spent away from you is time well-spent. Outside the enclave walls, I'll go my way,” he grumbled.  
  
-”We're agreed then, hurray!” Hulda hastened to pipe in. “Now see if there's a wand of Dispelling in there, so we can cancel this collar's accursed magic for starters.”  
  
Marek sighed, and poked around in the mass of sticks until he found one of beechwood that had a prism-like gem on top.  
  
-”Hold this,” he told Rhyl'lyn, and to Hulda's surprise, the Thayan pulled his tunic over his head and flung it in a corner. He produced a silk shirt from the leather bag, then a diadem, two rings, and a stick of incense.  
  
-”What's all this about,” Rhyl'lyn frowned, while the Knight lit the incense and inhaled the aromatic smoke before donning the magical jewellery.  
  
-”It is powerful magic to manipulate, something I can't hope to do without assistance. With these augmenting items, I can try to lift some of the enchantments in Hulda's collar... Hopefully, the right ones.”  
  
Rhyl'lyn turned away and softly cursed. Hulda didn't feel comfortable either, placing her chance at freedom in the hands of what bordered on dumb luck – and this time, not her own.  
She felt her skin prickle and tingle when Marek set to work on the collar. He didn't move a muscle, but his lips involuntarily formed unvoiced magical mantras as his mind explored the intricate handiwork of his father. Hulda thought she saw a natural talent at work, and deplored how it had been thrown away and replaced by notions of self-denial, brutal martial efficiency and an addiction to a mind-eroding substance.  
Suddenly, Marek's hazel-brown eyes rolled upwards and the Knight dropped like a dead weight onto the floor. His magical diadem rolled across the floor.  
  
-”What happened?” Hulda asked, checking him for injuries. “Did you trigger a fail-safe, or a ward?  
  
Marek moaned.  
  
-”I... think I got through the list,” he said, trying to sit up. “They're all such powerful spells, however... I think I only cancelled three.”  
  
-”Which ones?” Hulda demanded.  
  
-”If I may make an educated guess,” Rhyl'lyn said, and pointed. “It would seem you're a blonde again.”  
  
Hulda checked her hair and skin – the disguise was gone.  
  
-”See if you can take the collar off,” Marek suggested. Hulda tried, but the thing's lock didn't yield.  
  
-”Try picking up a weapon,” Rhyl'lyn in turn insisted, but Hulda was cautious.  
  
-”I'll get zapped again if that part of the magic is still working,” she said. Rhyl'lyn snapped his fingers.  
  
-”Good that you mention it,” he said, and took a careful step back.  
  
Hulda planted her hands in her sides and tried to come up with a good comeback... when all of sudden, a startled shriek reached their ears, accompanied by a crackling and fizzling sound. Out on the street, a small animal rushed by their hide-out at full speed, trailing residue sparkles of some light-emitting spell or other. It had a handful of enclave residents in its wake, some holding burlap sacks or wicker baskets. It looked a lot like they were chasing a chicken... that had been tampered with, somehow.  
  
-”... Was that the diversion?” Hulda asked, stumped but also oddly amused.  
  
Marek blushed.  
  
-”It's, ah... It's a loony idea my father once had: you find a chicken and a wand with plenty of a suitable spell left in it, and then use a wand of _Magic Mouth_ to have it speak its own command word each time the chicken goes 'bwock'. Add glue, and run like all of Hell's hot on your heels. A chicken firing geysers of glitter is not to be trifled with, and very hard to disarm.”  
  
He invited Hulda and Rhyl'lyn to come and poke their heads out the door, and pointed at the guards near the Main Gate, rubbing their eyes and bumping into each other. The chicken, apparently, had blasted them as it ran away from their groping hands.  
  
-”Now's the time,” Rhyl'lyn said, before quickly and noiselessly making for the gate.  
  
Hulda saw him cover the distance to slip right between the cussing and fidgeting guards and then out onto the road beyond, where he slid quietly into a ditch, beckoning for Hulda and Marek to make haste.  
The Thayan Knight quickly slung his possessions over his shoulder, including all of his armour, and picked up his shield.  
  
-”You first,” he said.  
  
Hulda felt the moment of truth was near – only two more effects from the magical collar had been lifted... Was leaving the enclave one of them? If she got immobilised the moment those guards regained their eyesight...  
  
-”Now Hulda, now!” Marek hissed and pushed her out in front of him.  
  
Hulda half ran, half stumbled past the guards, and out the gate. Startled, she turned around and fell backwards into Rhyl'lyn's ditch when she heard an angry voice shout:  
-”Hey! Who's this?”  
  
One of the guards, eyes all red and bleary, had grabbed Marek by the wrist.  
In answer, the Knight pulled hard, and swung his shield so it hit the man in the neck with the force of a club. He'd freed himself, but now had to dodge the partisan of the other guard, which he succeeded at – but the jumble of things on his back did not. The polearm caught behind a strap, and Marek was pulled flat on his stomach.  
The second guard, wobbly-legged, joined them just as the first pushed the fallen Knight over with his foot so he could skewer Marek from the front, but the latter forced the incoming threat aside with his shield, and jabbed at the man's unprotected inner thigh with the sharply curved topside. Still prone, dodging the second partisan by rolling himself and his bundle of armour against the wounded guard's legs and causing him to tip over, Marek managed to grab the weapon by its shaft.  
After involuntarily helping his adversary back on his feet, the guard that was still standing got a good look at who he had in front of him.  
  
-”S-sir!” he managed, recognising his own captain, who had now finally drawn his black sword and held it pointed steadily at the guard's throat.  
  
-”Truth be told, that wasn't all that bad,” Rhyl'lyn said from his covert position, eyeing the scene with professional interest.  
  
-”Get out of there, Marek,” Hulda whispered, not trusting it.  
  
At the gate, the Thayan Knight sheathed his sword again.  
  
-”At ease, soldier,” he told the guard, and gave him a pat on the shoulder. “You did well enough, considering. Try to disregard the obvious diversion method next time.”  
  
-”Diversion... method?” the confused man stuttered.  
  
-”The chicken,” Marek said magnanimously. “You nearly ran your colleague through there, mind, when you -”  
  
Hulda had seen the downed guard get back to his feet with malice in his eyes, but it was too late:  
  
-”... Got you, you turncoat of a Selûnite-friend!” he grunted, and thrust fiercely at the unarmoured Knight.  
  
The partisan's blade went in deep; prongs caught on ribs and lifted Marek nearly off his feet. A reflex had him grab the shaft as he fell, trying to prevent his attacker from pulling out and stabbing him again, but now the guard had the Knight pinned to the ground, making him cry out as he gave the pole-arm a twist.  
Hulda was out of the ditch without thinking, yet someone was faster – like a black blur colliding with Marek's attacker, Rhyl'lyn was on top of things in a breath.  
The guard staggered, bleeding all of a sudden from more places than he could hold his hands on.  
  
-”Alarm!” his mate cried, right before Rhyl'lyn could shut him up. The drow's short sword flickered red; a streak of blood painted the inside of the Main Gate.  
  
Hulda knelt beside Marek, whose blood flowed dark red, and copiously.  
Wordlessly thanking Selûne and Assur Thrym for her healing spells, Hulda let her magic flow into the torn skin and tissue.  
  
-”That's fast,” Rhyl'lyn observed as the first of a detachment of Enclave guards came running towards them.  
  
He threw his sword down with force, so that it stuck upright in the wooden drawbridge before he grabbed and loaded his crossbow.  
Two of the guards didn't make it to the gate, but the third had the drow reach for his sword again. Rhyl'lyn dodged a powerful blow and pulled the guard right onto the blade.  
  
”Little help here,” he huffed as he pushed the dying man off his weapon, eyeing the approaching enemy – more and more men-at-arms kept coming their way, Hulda saw.  
  
She reached for an unattended partisan, but got electrocuted as soon as she touched it.  
  
-”We need to close the portcullis,” Marek, now healed, said. He got up and joined Rhyl'lyn, his shield-side facing the incoming threat so that both men could stand back-to-back.  
  
Meanwhile, a chorus of voices picked up:  
  
-”Slave escape! Murder!”  
  
When all were near enough to recognise Marek Thrym of the Guard, however, a new cry drowned out all the others:  
  
-”Treason! Betrayal!”  
  
-”Alert Mistress Naheeta,” one guard told a young recruit. “She'll deal with him.”  
  
Marek paled.  
  
-”The portcullis, before it's too late!” he shouted, right as the two groups clashed and Hulda found herself and both of her allies surrounded by flashing steel.  
  
She thought she did well enough defending the men's rear, considering her only weapon was a piece of Marek's armour. One lance got pushed into the dirt with it, and an unfriendly face painfully made its acquaintance with the mage-wrought steel as well. Her next attacker, however, clubbed the thing out of her hands with the pommel of her sword, and grabbed Hulda by the throat with her free hand.  
Hulda needed both hands to hold back the one with the sword, but her opponent was a huge woman with strength to match, and the point of the blade kept coming nearer and nearer.  
Bereft of all choice, Hulda quickly slapped her hand around the sharp steel.  
She hardly felt the cut through the jolt of electricity that stunned both her and her armoured opponent, who kept crackling from her gorget all the way to her sabatons.  
Enemies were piling up left and right from her, and Rhyl'lyn and Marek were slowly but steadily cutting themselves a measure of breathing room.  
Rhyl'lyn used a partisan to activate the portcullis' mechanism from a safe distance, and with the counter-weights below the flagstone floor groaning, the heavy grate came sliding down.  
  
-”Hurry up, drow,” Marek warned him, “we must reach the forest before they get it up again, or they'll take us out with arrows and spells.”  
  
-”I hear you,” Rhyl'lyn said, and put a quarrel with a chisel-shaped head on his crossbow. The projectile flew true and nicked the fat rope that looped through the grate's system of blocks and pulleys. “That should do it – let's move...!”  
  
Hulda had picked up Marek's assorted junk, and let the Knight cover their retreat with his big shield as they made for the woods. She heard the portcullis' wheel being worked, and agitated shouting when the rope snapped and the grate stubbornly fell down again right on top of two of the more impatient guards.  
  
In the shadow of the forest's mighty oaks, Rhyl'lyn bade Hulda and Marek follow a zigzagging gully, where they would hardly leave any noticeable footprints. He would go the other way, he said, and break twigs and stomp herbs to lead the Thayans by the nose.  
It didn't sit right with Hulda that they parted so hurriedly, but then again, something told her this wasn't the last she'd seen of the dark elf.


	14. It's Hard to Let Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just who needs saving, here, exactly?

Marek led on, and Hulda made sure she stepped wherever he'd stepped, for one time not slipping on the wet rocks that littered their escape route and decorating the damp soil with a nice negative of her bottom.  
When the sounds of the forest became more abundant, the gully gradually less deep and the going easier, she and Marek sank down on a fallen tree-trunk and assessed their situation.  
  
-”Have we got any food in there?” she asked, and poked their belongings with her foot.  
  
The Thayan shook his head, but started rummaging through them nonetheless. Presenting Hulda with her own confiscated gear, he said:  
  
-”Only that which the forest is willing to provide... Do you think there's something in there that you could wield as a weapon? I'll be needing my armour back, you see.”  
  
He nodded at the bundle; Hulda saw that nothing was missing. One item reminded her of what Rhyl'lyn had said back in the Enclave, and she stuffed it behind her belt, just in case.  
  
-”I've got my garott- I mean, stockings,” she grinned.  
  


* * *

  
  
Quietly, they each geared up and got their stuff organised: they had an empty sack each, for foraging, and the remaining satchel and Marek's quiver of wands he slung on his back, as Hulda couldn't use any of them anyway as long as she still wore the collar.  
She sat wondering whether she ought to trade her boots from the Emporium with her usual ones, when the Knight broke the silence.  
  
-”Sorry for all the shoving,” he suddenly said.  
  
-”The what now?” Hulda blinked.  
  
-”The shoves,” Marek repeated. “I keep shoving and pushing you – I'm sorry. It's a bodyguard thing.”  
  
Hulda looked at the Knight. Was this his way of coming clean with her? What was he planning?  
  
”I'm also sorry for everything that's happened,” he continued. “I do hope you don't think it's your fault... After all, you didn't ask to be kidnapped and held hostage.”  
  
Hulda thought that if there was anyone more inconvenienced than her with all that had transpired, it had to be Marek. He had lost _so much_.  
  
-”Marek, you don't have to -”  
  
-”You can go.”  
  
And there it was. Hulda was perplexed:  
  
-”You'll... you'll give up that mission of yours?” she asked. “You'll willingly let Samas Kul's plans with Silverymoon go down the drain? ... But why?”  
  
-”Because – because you could have been free if you wanted to, already. You didn't need to leave that ditch to heal my wound, or fight those guards but you did,” Marek reminded her. “On top of that, I've been branded a traitor now – something Naheeta will very much like to confirm if asked. There is no way you would survive, knowing what you know, and neither will I. Samas Kul will cut his losses, arranging for you to disappear, and for me to provide a written confirmation that the mission was a set-up to disgrace him and his Guild of Foreign Trade. The way I see it, there is no reason why both of us should die.”  
  
-”No-one is going to die,” Hulda said sternly.  
  
-”Samas Kul has a way of cleaning up after himself,” Marek shook his head. “And if he's not the first to find us, then Naheeta and the Church of Shar certainly will be: a quick death is out of the question, if that were to be the case. Leave, and don't tell me where you're going. Red Wizards have means of making a man speak whether he wants to or not.”  
  
-”... Not going to happen...!” Hulda said, standing up. “I won't go anywhere when you're homeless and cast out, spit out and sold out by the ones you erringly call your superiors. I know I can't lift a toothpick with this thing around my neck, but we're going to fight ourselves out of this together, even if I must use my teeth and fingernails...!”  
  


* * *

  
  
Marek didn't speak much after that, but neither did he look unhappy – just worried, as was only suitable in their situation. They agreed that they would head for a forester's road he knew about, and which would lead them due west, where they could – hopefully- make their way towards the Unicorn Run and from there, Secomber. A sizable city like that would provide them with ways to travel incognito along the usual caravan roads towards the Gem of the North: Silverymoon. Hulda was hopeful that the fallen Knight could find amnesty there, and maybe even enjoy himself.  
Oh, there were several locations she would just _have_ to show him – the Temple's scriptorium, the House of the Spellguard, and maybe some of the fine elven tailors that made shop along the river, where colourful linen and silk arrived by barge on a daily basis. And that one baker's shop where they had such tasty sweetrolls.  
They walked on until the sun's slanted rays dipped below the canopy and made Hulda notice something peculiar about the Thayan Knight's black armour – his left side seemed to be glittering golden when looked at from a certain angle.  
  
-”Marek, stop,” she said, and ran a finger over the polished metal- it came back sparkling. ”What's this?”  
  
The Thayan's eyes grew big, and he thrust his shoulder-bag down to take out a familiar, but now nearly empty leather purse.  
  
-”The invisibility-dust,” he gasped. A fine golden substance was spilling out from a small hole between two loosened stitches and added to the mess it had made inside the shoulder-bag. Part of it seemed to have gotten out and onto Marek's back and legs.  
  
-”With any luck, we won't be needing any of that anymore,” Hulda tried to put the matter in perspective, though the magic going to waste without being used still felt wrong.  
  
-”It's not that,” Marek said, fearful. Hulda saw him look the way they'd come, and he went rigid.  
  
-”Are you casting a spell?” she asked, watching his eyes get that strange intensity again. She could see his fingers twitch and flex as they formed the arcane patterns on their own accord.  
  
-”It's everywhere,” he only said, and hastened to throw the entire bag as far as he could. “Each speck of that dust is a beacon for Naheeta's spells. She and her acolytes will comb the forest looking for anything smelling of magic, and we just left a trail of golden crumbs for them...!”  
  
-”The Unicorn Run then – we must find the river as soon as we can, and rinse it off,” Hulda suggested, and Marek reached out to grab her hand.  
She wanted to get going again and make good pace, but the Thayan held her back.  
”What is it?” she asked. Marek didn't look at her.  
“Come on, we have to go,” Hulda urged, but didn't get the Knight to move, though he kept holding on to her hand really tightly. ”What's wrong with you? Let go of me!” Hulda felt her heart race as realisation dawned on her, right when five, nay, _six_ Sharrans plus Naheeta emerged from the greenery and surrounded them.


	15. Escape From Bondage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the dishing out of death, despair and destruction is copious and non-exclusive.

Hulda's hand flew up and smacked Marek right across the face. To see the Knight had held on to the Church of Shar and now faltered on the brink of success was, to her, as much a personal defeat as a betrayal.  
The wallop didn't seem to do much beside causing the newly arrived Sharrans to snigger.  
  
-”Such a dainty scene we intrude on: the faithful Knight and his simpleton damsel,” Naheeta sneered. “And blonde, even. My, my, my.”  
  
-”At least I have hair,” Hulda scoffed, finding that Assur Thrym's speech-impeding spell had to be the third of the collar's enchantments to have been cancelled.  
  
Trying to pull herself free once more, it felt like the Thayan Knight's hand might as well have petrified around hers – only then did it become clear to Hulda that he was not quite himself.  
With her handprint starting to show red on his cheek, Marek's face was locked in the exact same expression, and he was still staring dead ahead. He hadn't acknowledged Naheeta's little joke, or spoken at all, and it was hard to see if he was even breathing.  
  
“Our little Selûnite seems surprised,” the priestess observed. “My dear, Marek here knows full well that once you step out of line, no mere little temple girl is going to reduce Shar's wrath – the price for disobedience _alone_ is death... What you're seeing here is just my little spell holding him fast while I contemplate a suitable punishment for running off with a damn Selûnite, of all people!”  
  
The last words were carried by so much anger, they came with a blow of the priestess' black staff right against the defenceless Knight's head.  
He fell and rolled over, jumping up with his sword drawn instantly – even as he swung it, Naheeta cast a wordless spell, and the weapon stopped in its path.  
A second time, Marek stood frozen and the Sharran woman nonchalantly stepped away from the blade that had neared her neck to within the span of an hand.  
  
Hulda, finding herself free from Marek's grasp had wasted no time but pulled the improvised garrotte out of her belt and advanced on the Red Wizard. Naheeta was aware, however and pointed her staff at her, only a moment too late: with her hands folded into a double fist, Hulda's punch resembled a wallop from a mallet. The priestess staggered, and Hulda looped her stockings around her neck.  
All around her, acolytes jumped to their mistress' aid, and Hulda had a dozen hands groping for her within moments.  
She activated the magic of her newly reclaimed bracers even as she was being peeled off of the priestess, and the next moment, found herself standing well behind the group of confused Sharrans and out of reach of their grabbing hands. One of them shouted and pointed, and Hulda had to retreat to a nearby rock to gain some time to think about what to do – she could let her Mooncloak carry her away from there, although it meant leaving Marek to whatever dire fate Naheeta had in store for him. But then what was she to do against seven, with that double-damned collar on?  
  
One of the acolytes droned an incantation. All around Hulda's rock, shoots and tendrils of a black and ghostly vine sprouted from the earth, and groped for her. She danced around the first that tried to grab her, but the second was too fast – however, it slid right off her, as if more magic was at play there. A third and a fourth offshoot of the shadowy plant failed to get a hold of her, as well.  
With some glee, Hulda realised Assur Thrym's boots were indeed magical after all.  
She let her cloak carry her aloft unhindered, but Naheeta's repertoire of spells wasn't depleted yet: on the priestess' command, the flight-magic ceased and Hulda dropped like a stone.  
She managed to grab an oaken branch, but it snapped and came falling down with her, hitting Naheeta painfully in the mouth. Somewhat dazed from the fall, Hulda heard the woman coughing and spitting – a tooth, she guessed, but secretly hoped for a tongue – about the same time that the footfall of rapidly approaching acolytes reached her ears.  
A moment later, she was overcome, pushed and punched and kicked, pulled back on her feet and made to face the livid priestess.  
  
-”You'll pay dearly for this!” the red-robed fury half-coughed, half-screeched. “I'll send your defaced corpse to your family and loved ones, one piece at a time, with months in between! I'll make your animated head scream profanities and throw it through your Temple's front door!”  
  
Hulda kicked and struggled, but it was a rather broad and muscular man that held her, armoured on top of that, and she couldn't prevent Naheeta's spittle from landing on her face as the wizardess raged on.  
  
It took a while for the Thayan woman to recompose herself and muster the field of victory.  
  
“Now then,” she said, straightening her robes, “If you don't mind – I have a mutual friend of ours to lecture on the consequences of his regrettable choices...”  
  
She walked over to where Marek was still standing, his sword mid-swing and his scowl frighteningly deep. Naheeta didn't seem impressed in the least, and circled the Knight once before resting her staff on Marek's shoulder, words of power flowing from her pursed lips not unlike a lover's sweet promises.  
Hulda recognized some syllables of the spell being cast, and saw her suspicions confirmed when Marek abruptly clutched his sides and sank to a knee with a groan, face contorted with pain. His sword landed at his feet with a clatter. A self-satisfied Naheeta paced in front of the admonished Knight, waiting until the effects of the spell had nearly worn off before giving him another.  
Marek rolled around in the dirt, breathing heavily through set teeth but not deigning his priestess worthy of as much as a whimper.  
  
-”You needn't cry out for me - I know you're hurting,” Naheeta crooned. “The Dark Goddess relishes the pain of your existence, the pain of your loss – and of your helplessness. You know as much as I do that that lovely drawing on your Knighted head is a pretty little funnel for my enchantments...” Slowly and deliberately, she placed the end of her staff on Marek's forehead. “... Guess who'll have the honour of decapitating that little Selûnite witch for me?”  
  
Marek, heaving and panting at her feet, muttered something under his breath.  
  
”What did you just say? You must speak up, Marek Thrym of the Guard,” Naheeta said, stooping to listen.  
  
Marek coughed.  
  
-”What's a good way to make the enemy troops hit harder?” he asked in hoarse voice. “... Casting _Nybor's Wrathful Castigation_...!”  
  
With these words, he had his hand on his sword and his feet both firmly under him again as he brought the black blade up with uncanny speed – the magic staff still pointed at him got severed, and the wizardess was floored with an elbow to the chin.  
  
”Run!” Marek yelled at Hulda, launching his sword overhand at the man holding her. Such an incredible force was behind the throw that it knocked the man back several feet when the blade cleaved the helmet and skull all the same.  
  
-”And leave you to deal with this scum alone?” Hulda said, dodging an acidic spell from an acolyte, “... Never!”  
  
Another magical projectile got intercepted and dispersed by Marek's tall shield, which he then threw at the shooter. The Sharran gave a frightened yelp as he jumped away from the incoming slab of steel, and fumbled his next attempt at casting a spell.  
  
“... Stop throwing your stuff away, Marek,” Hulda mumbled, somewhat worried. In answer, the knight grabbed a sword-wielding Sharran by the wrist and left-hooked him so fiercely on the elbow the weapon changed owners. Booting his opponent away from him and deftly parrying the hard-pressed attacks of the advancing Sharrans he yelled back:  
  
-”Run – I mean it! I'm going to pull a Zan Kuras here!”  
  
It was all Hulda needed to try and get as much distance between herself and the fighting; she doubted if any of the Sharrans knew exactly how good Zan had been at blowing things out of proportion... or just blowing things up.  
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Marek throw his quiver of wands at the nearest Sharran, and then dive away.  
A blinding flash accompanied by a thunderous boom shook the entire forest – between falling leaves and twigs, everyone now lay flat on their backs and stomachs; the ones wearing robes even had caught fire and were rolling around and shrieking in pain. The Sharran that Marek had thrown the quiver at wasn't exactly gone altogether – in fact, he was a little bit everywhere.  
Hulda turned away in disgust, until Marek showed up and pulled her along.  
  
-”The road can't be far,” he said. “Quickly now, before they regain their senses. We'll have to run for it.”  
  
Hulda could see that he was hurt and limping severely, so she healed him with the last of her magic as they clambered uphill. They were starting to to look rather bloodied and messy, she thought, but at least they were still alive.  
  
-”That explosion,” she started asking, puffing.  
  
Marek graced her with a smile.  
  
-”Safety-measure from my father; he put it on every wand he ever made, so they wouldn't be used against him. It was always the same trigger-word, too, and he warned me never to say it unless I wanted to lose a hand. It had me wonder what a whole load of 'm would do.”  
  
-”Sounds like good old-fashioned Thayan paranoia put to good use,” Hulda grinned.  
  
Ahead, she thought she could see an open space, and guessed that was where the road had to be.  


* * *

  
  
Elated, Hulda left the shadow of the trees behind her and trod the wide dirt road – they were no-where near the end of danger though, and Marek urged her to keep running.  
That's when they heard the sound of riders approaching, and from around a bend in the road appeared two men that Hulda would have recognised out of a thousand thousand, even though they had huddled themselves in their cloaks and rode cheap horses. The bird on the shoulder of the tallest rider squawked with recognition, also.  
She didn't know how Fundinn and her brothers got there as fast as they did, even with the explosion to gain their attention – until she caught a glimpse of Pinky hanging from Harald's belt, which had her think Rhyl'lyn must have run into them. But that didn't explain why Harald readied his crossbow and Jonas started waving his arms frantically in arcane patterns. She did, though, once a set of bright, magical missiles raced right past her - Marek, who had been running behind her with his borrowed sword still in hand got smitten by all five of them, square in the chest. Jonas always kept the _Magic Missile_ spell handy, since it never missed its mark.  
The staggering Knight's breastplate hummed audibly with the resonance from the impact, and Hulda could see him grimace with pain.  
She wanted to yell at her brothers, but Marek roughly pulled at her, and she fell.  
  
-”Down!” he hissed, and protectively placed his legs astride her. At that same moment, Hulda saw Harald take aim.  
  
-”No!” She shrieked, but the bowstring twanged, and the Thayan's sword clattered to the ground – him following soon after.  
  
Her brother's shot had been masterful: fired when Marek stood hunched, the quarrel had found a place where it could sink deep and unhindered – past the Thayan's jaw and ear and above the left collarbone, right next to the base of the neck. Already the shaft was bright red with arterial blood. Why did Harald have to be such a good shot today?  
  
Hulda felt like she could cry an ocean; she had already used up the last of her Healing magic.  
  
-”Potions! Does any of you have any healing potions?!” she shouted over her shoulder.  
  
Her siblings reined their horses in, perplexed. Jonas quickly dismounted, shoving a hand into a saddlebag. Harald just stared, slack-jawed, but then commotion sounded from the bushes and four angry Sharrans arrived onto the scene, their cries for blood dying on their lips when the Knight in Silver snapped to attention, spurred his horse and charged right into their ranks. Quick to rectify things, Hulda's brother and his longsword made short work of the Sharran threat.  
  
Next to her, Marek tried to talk.  
  
-”Collar,” he sputtered, his lungs filling up with blood fast. He hooked a finger through the ring on the front of the slave-collar around Hulda's neck. “P – paint...”  
  
-”You need my collar?” Hulda asked, not quite understanding what he meant. “Do you want -”  
  
-”To live...!” the Knight whispered, his eyes going big. He blindly groped for Hulda, staring at a point in space far beyond her.  
  
-”Marek!” Hulda yelled, even as his strength was failing him and his head fell back on the bloodied dirt; “Marek – we can't bring you back if you only denounced Shar: you'll be one of the Faithless! We need you to embrace a new – _Marek_!”  
  
Jonas, at long last, came rushing over with a vial in his hands, but when it was poured in the Knight's mouth the magical drought just sat there without being swallowed. Hulda tried to massage Marek's throat, but Jonah placed a hand on her shoulder. Harald, too, came over and knelt beside her, sword still in hand.  
  
-”It's too late, Hulda,” he said, and pointed: the Knight's skin looked sallow and pale; his wound had nearly stopped bleeding. Wide-open eyes stared unblinking into the whirling dust the brief battle with the Sharrans had kicked up. “His spirit has departed.”  


* * *

  
  
Hulda waited near her dead friend while her brothers, at her bidding, searched the forest for Naheeta.  
Investigating the collar, which Jonas had opened by placing his hands on the lock on the back and muttering an incantation, Hulda discovered it was all bejewelled gold painted over. The ring on the front, she found after rigorous scratching, was in itself worth more than the rest of the thing put together: it was a flawless diamond, shaped as a smooth toroid with the help of magic. Now she understood how so many spells and ensorcelments could have been bestowed upon the collar without sliding off of it right away, as would have been the case with lesser materials.  
She also understood what Marek had meant when he had held her collar like that in the final moments of his life. The diamond was the fee for his resurrection.  
Harald and Jonas returned, with Marek's sword and shield and the broken black staff of the priestess of Shar, but without news of her whereabouts.  
Hulda rose, and dried her tears.  
  
-”We need to make a stretcher,” she told her brothers.


	16. A Bargain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To what lengths would one go, and what risks is one prepared to take to see a dear friend again? There is only one way and one chance to do it right, but no-one has all the answers...

-”Hulda, dear,” the Lady Meldrys said, pacing her tasteful apartments in Selûne's Temple in Silverymoon. She shook her head with a pained expression on her face. “It is unwise, nay – _foolish_ to want to bring this specific man you dragged in here back to life, even if the cost for such a ritual is covered. Not only is he clearly a Thayan Knight, but from what I gather from your report, a worshipper of our Goddess' arch-enemy as well!”  
  
-”Ex-Knight, and he got kicked out of Shar's little club for protecting me and going against the will of her priestess. He even attacked her - that pretty much counts as apostasy,” Hulda assured her superior.   
  
-”It only convinces me that he is now Faithless, cursed to be used as mortar for the walls of Kelemvor's City of the Dead, and therefore, beyond our hopes of successful resurrection,” Meldrys explained.   
  
-”There's no way to know that for sure,” Hulda said fiercely.   
  
-”There is – if the ritual fails, and your priceless diamond will be destroyed for naught!” Meldrys brushed back her silky hair, and sighed. “For your own good, Hulda, accept his death and keep your prize; it would only be fair after what you've gone through at the hands of those criminal wizards.”  
  
-”They already paid their debts,” Hulda growled. “They lost a brilliant Transmuter as well as one of Aznar Thrul's own Evokers, plus the devoted warrior that Marek once was. On top of all that, their schemes for forcing their enclave program on Silverymoon have been exposed. I almost had a friend out of it, who with his last breath begged me to let him live again, and the only thing keeping me from doing so is you and your economical notions of what's valuable to whom!”  
  
-”That's quite enough!” Meldrys shot, nearly breathing fire – so insulted was she. Hulda looked away.  
  
-”I suppose I could ask another temple to perform the ritual... The local chapter of Lady Firehair is said to be graced by a powerful high priestess visiting,” she thought aloud.  
  
-”Ah – you want me to think you're actually considering that, but I'm on to you,” Meldrys twiddled her finger at her. “You wouldn't do that. And even so, that high priestess is going to have the same concerns about the Thayan as I do.”  
  
Hulda shrugged.  
  
-”She might, and maybe she might not. The followers of Sune are known for their liberal thinking, _and_ their goddess is known to have saved another from the influence of Shar already. I think her Church would be delighted to honour that piece of history.”  
  
-”What – you'd go ask the Sunites, with their frilly clothes and painted faces for favours with your sisters and brothers looking on from the other side of town? Because we are not free-thinking? Our temple wouldn't hear the end of it! No, such bad publicity we simply can't risk,” the high priestess said, rubbing her brow.  
  
-”So can I?” Hulda beamed, hopeful. Lady Meldrys flopped down in an armchair to take to frowning over her cup of tea.  
  
-”Fine,” she capitulated. “Buy the incense, prepare the body. I'll lead the ritual myself. Just -” The priestess sighed.  
  
-”Just what, m'lady?” Hulda inquired. Her superior looked at her like a tired mother would to a troublesome child.  
  
-”Just don't become the girl that wants to befriend and keep every stray creature she finds on her adventures? You can do that Hulda, can't you? It would be so tiresome, otherwise...”  
  


* * *

  
  
On her excursion out by the riverbank, to pick the herbs she would need, Hulda nearly fell over Pooky.  
  
-”So where have _you_ been?” she asked.  
  
-”Where haven't I,” the imp sourly replied. “You were damn hard to find, and it's not like I have my own Portal that I can use whenever your stupid wizard friend banishes me. It's a good thing Logistics is my speciality.” He looked left and right, to see if no-one else was near. “About the Thayan Knight,” he said, “... I think I can make you a most agreeable deal there.”  
  
Hulda rolled her eyes and continued down the narrow trail beside the water. “You do have moxie showing up in here. Doesn't Silverymoon's mythal prevent your kind from crossing its borders?”  
  
-”This part of the riverbank is not part of the mythal's warded area,” the tiny fiend pointed. “From here, I can reach that vine and if I stay in the treetops I can make it to the bridge and across the river again.”  
  
-”And you're not afraid that I might give you a little kick and have you fall into the water? I'm sure the mythal's wards envelop the stream's entire breadth downriver,” Hulda said. The imp gave her a distrustful look.  
  
-”... _Yes_ , but my offer is worth it, I assure you! Look, for a small tithing of your soul – just borrowing it for a while, so to speak – we will send message to your perished Knight, if he has not yet left the Fugue Plane to join the masonry of Kelemvor's city wall.”  
  
-”What if he has?” Hulda asked. Pooky offered a sly grin.  
  
-”The bargain can always be expanded upon,” he suggested, “... at a price, naturally, since it will require some creative interpreting of Kelemvor's decree concerning the Faithless if you want us to snatch the Thayan's soul out of that wall. Catching and convincing a Tanar'ri to do the snatching for us, to be precise.”  
  
-”He didn't die Faithless,” Hulda said through set teeth, “I'm sure he accepted the light of Selûne before he breathed his last.”  
  
-”He died False then – for a former Sharran to accept Selûne is a lot to ask, if not of him then for sure of your deity,” Pooky said, ominously. “Your only way to get him back for sure, is to consider our offer: we secure his soul for you, and our Master Orgolorth will bring him along next time you summon him with your blood. _Provided_ it's with a valid reason, this time...!”   
  
Hulda regarded the imp.  
  
-”I didn't know that was even possible. I can only summon your master – and I'm pretty sure he can only summon... Oh you would _not_...!” Hulda exclaimed, making Pooky raise his spindly arms in defence.  
  
-”What? I didn't say anything! All I said is true and more – he'll be in one piece and in top condition, all for the patronage of the Bloodbearer.”  
  
-”Will he be _as he was_?” Hulda asked with emphasis. The imp's expression grew sour.  
  
-”A vessel for the soul will be provided of course – at no extra charge! Like I said, it's a most agreeable deal.”  
  
-”You would turn him into a devil,” Hulda summarised it; Pooky not trying to correct her was proof that she'd guessed correctly.  
  
-”He'd be a tremendous warrior, a great spellcaster and an unbelievable lover,” he said in a sinister voice. “You'd do well to consider – no finer bodyguard will ever present himself. I hear that you have made yourself some powerful enemies, recently...?”  
  
-”Marek _has_ a body, damn you – how hard can it be to use that one?” Hulda  felt her patience stretch thin.  
  
-”Quite – there'll be some paperwork involved... resources to expend... It'll cost you. Full forgoing of your soul,” Pooky said, “... on Master Orgolorth's terms.”  
  
Hulda looked at him.  
  
-”But a simple message will cost me less?”  
  
-”Indeed,” the fiend confirmed, and obediently bowed his head.  
  
-”You know what, Pooky? Get lost,” Hulda said and scooped him up with her boot before tipping him into the river next to her. The flailing imp disappeared with a yelp and a puff of sulphur-smoke as soon as he'd touched the invisible perimeter of the mythal, downstream.  
“Marek placed his faith in me,” Hulda grumbled, “... and I sure as the Nine Hells _and_ the Gates of the Moon won't let him down...!”  
  


* * *

  
  
The day of the ritual came, and Hulda felt uneasy despite herself. She and her fellows had prepared a quiet chapel in the Temple with curtains and candles, and now two novices sang hymns to create the atmosphere needed for High Priestess Meldrys to successfully reach out to a soul whose memories of life and the living had faded with each passing day. The singers had been hand-picked by the priestess for their exquisite and lovely voices, and Hulda imagined the delicate notes of their song being carried upwards on the coiling wisps of incense-smoke as a way to banish her anxiety.   
The lady Meldrys incanted the ritual's sacred stanzas, and guided the fragrant vapour with her hands over and around the pale, magically preserved body of Marek. He had been cleaned up, clothed in a second-hand tunic and laid to rest on a slab of marble, though with Hulda's own spare pillow and feather bedding on top to wear off its cold sensation.  
Hulda had feared that the Knight's demonic-looking tattoo would be so out of place on this holy site as to ruin Meldrys' concentration, and she had applied a piece of green cloth as a bandanna, resulting in her thoughts drifting towards eye-patches and parrots more than once during the long, long ritual.  
The moon had risen when Meldrys arrived to the part where she was to offer up the diamond. She gave Hulda a meaningful glance as she lifted the gem up with both hands, where it started to glow with a silvery light before evaporating into an iridescent mist that hung in the air, unmoving.  
  
-”Let someone now speak up, and petition this man's soul to accept his mortal coil again, to live amongst those that held him dear in life,” Meldrys said, and gestured for Hulda to rise from her seat.  
  
Hulda had thought long and hard about what she could say that would bring a troubled and bereft Thayan back to the world where he was an outcast – even those people who didn't have reasons to despise him would surely treat him with distrust, if they knew of his origins.  
  
-”Marek,” she finally spoke, unsure whether to address the placid face under the bandanna or the shimmering mist above, “If you can hear me – I'm not going to tell you to come back just for me, because that's what I'd want...”  
From the corner of her eyes, she saw Meldrys shake her head with a worried frown. _“No, not like that,”_ she mouthed, but Hulda mimed right back: _“He's got no-one,”_ which caused the exasperated priestess to throw her hands and eyes up as if to ask Selûne for mercy.  
“... But for _yourself_ ,” Hulda continued, “... since there's so much to experience and enjoy that you haven't had a chance at yet, and I think it would really make you happy, and that's why I'm asking, because that would make me happy too.”  
  
Meldrys stared oddly at Hulda, still as a statue before she started making the gestures that would complete the ritual and reveal whether it had been successful or not.  
The luminous mist descended on the Knight, and momentarily shone brightly before disappearing completely.  
A sharply inhaled breath startled the women – Marek stirred, and his hazel eyes fluttered open.  
  
-”You're back!” Hulda exclaimed, feeling triumphant and, unexpectedly since this was the second time she'd witnessed him come back from the dead, quite emotional. “You had me worried that you'd forgotten to accept Selûne into your heart there, when you lay bleeding out on that road.”  
  
The Knight's usual frown turned into an incredulous one.  
  
-”Hulda,” he said, “I was a Selûnite the moment we left the Enclave.”   
  
His right hand fingered the spot where Harald's quarrel had struck him; the last of the pearly light from Meldrys' magic played around a pale scar that contrasted sharply with his tan. It was nearly round and about as small as a coin, and the Lady Meldrys gasped when she, like Hulda, recognised its shape.  
  
-”Waxing Selûne,” the high priestess said, her hand on her breast.   
  
Hulda smiled, and let Marek in on its significance:  
  
-”It's a sign of New Beginnings.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Days later, when Marek was about to leave the hospitality of the Temple and take up residence with a master-mason, where he had found a job, he and Hulda strolled the gardens of the Temple's apothecary.  
  
-”How much do you remember from your time in the afterlife?” she asked, picking elderberries and stuffing them in her mouth as they went. Marek didn't take any – he preferred strawberries.  
  
-”Precious little – only that, while I was in a world of light, I felt like I had left something significant behind, something unfinished. In the end, that was why I accepted the invitation.”  
  
-”Well I've never – and here I was, thinking I had done a great job with that speech of mine...!” Hulda pretended to feel hurt, causing Marek to start sweating as he began to apologise:  
  
-”Oh, but you have! I... felt the words, out there, or rather their meaning, and I knew they were from the heart. But to be completely frank, I figured I ought to go out and look for Zan.”  
  
-”Marek, he's dead, you know that – and scattered over a wide area too, most likely,” Hulda regretted to say. The Thayan grinned.  
  
-”It's nothing that hasn't happened to me before – second campaign against the Mulhorandi, to be precise. According to my father, a splinter of bone is enough,” he assured her. “I'm thinking of selling my armour to buy the diamond needed. The steel itself is magical already, and with all the enchantments placed on it, I'm sure it'll make a pretty penny. Plus there's my work at the mason's workshop, of course.”  
  
-”Hauling stone isn't going to make you rich, though,” Hulda said. “Diamonds big enough for a small horse to choke on are rare and expensive.”  
  
Marek was quiet for a time.  
  
-”Thank you, for not choosing the gem on that collar over me,” he meekly said. Hulda shrugged the notion away with a chuckle.  
  
-”Hey, if I have to choose between you and that ugly, top-heavy piece of jewellery, your friendship is a real bargain,” she grinned, and Marek answered with an actual, generous smile of his own.


	17. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thought you'd seen the last of this guy, did you?

Zan woke.  
He turned onto his other side and tried to recall the dream he had – he'd dreamed about dying. _"So that's what that's like"_ , he remembered thinking. He rolled onto his back and let the light of the morning sun filter through his eyelashes. He decided he'd keep lying there, pretending to sleep, and wait for the sounds of breakfast being made by his Knight and Hulda.  
Nothing of the sort reached his ears though, and he carefully stole a glance to see if they were even there.  
They weren't.  
He didn't recall going to sleep in the middle of a patch of fern, either, and no signs of a campfire were to be seen. At arm's length, where his staff ought have been, there were only toadstools – or were there? Half-covered with moss was a glimmer of gold, and when Zan groped for the half-molten head of his precious staff, he noticed his hand had changed into a paw of sorts.  
He wanted to yell, but he heard a wheezing sound instead – _“Kossuth's ire,”_ he'd have said, _“... this isn't happening!”_ yet no real words were forthcoming.   
In a fit of hisses and squeaks, he turned around and about to figure out what it was he'd turned into, and after eliminating skunk, raccoon and ferret, settled on badger.  
 _“Terrific – I'm the stuff painting brushes are made of,”_ Zan thought as he flopped down on his belly. Suddenly, he felt uncomfortable barefoot, and the air on his fur was chilly. It bothered him immensely that he wasn't taller than most of the plants around him, and he realised that if he wanted to pick up the remainder of his staff, he'd have to do so with his teeth.  
Angry for being treated like that – by whom, anyway? - he bundled up his magic, and shaping the energies without words or gestures, set fire to a tree.   
_“At least I've still got that to go with,”_ he mused as he watched the bark split and pop in the flames.  
Zan knew coming back as an animal required magic, and that meant someone was responsible.  
And that someone would know the price for turning a Red Wizard Circle Leader into a furry forest critter – as true a fact as his tail wagging in delight at the prospect of vengeance...

**Author's Note:**

> Hulda, Harald and Jonas Swanmantle, Rhyl'lyn Zinard, Meldrys, Orgolorth, Pooky & Fundinn © SnippetsRUs  
> Marek and Assur Thrym, Zan Kuras, Naheeta & Tugan © BATTLEFAIRIES  
> Forgotten Realms © Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro


End file.
